WATERING 139 



Haifa, where at times I have known the thermometer to 

 register 125 Fahr. I know that the desert tribes, when 

 they allow their camels to graze in the larger oases for 

 several months after the rains, water them regularly 

 every day. For example, at Om Badr, in Darfur, 

 350 miles from Old Dongola, on the road to El Fasher, 

 where there are said to be 500 wells, and where, in the 

 ordinary course of events, 10,000 camels drink daily 

 until the end of the dry season, when there is only 

 enough water for 1,000 ; while about a similar number 

 assemble at Gakdool, in the Bayuda desert. 



Training a camel, so to speak, by only giving him Training 

 water every second day, or keeping it from him for 

 three days preparatory to an emergency, is simple 

 nonsense, as I have previously remarked, for I main- 

 tain that the camel requires no special training. On ac- 

 count of his powers of abstinence there is no reason 

 why he should be treated differently from other 

 animals ; and to me it seems opposed to common sense 

 to deprive an animal simply because he has this power, 

 altogether overlooking the fact that he only possesses it 

 to a limited and not to an exaggerated extent as he is 

 credited. This is a mistake, for a camel in watering 

 and feeding, especially when marching and working 

 regularly except on an emergency when he is called 

 upon to make a special effort should be treated as an 

 ordinary quadruped. Far from preparing him for an 

 effort by training or treating him otherwise, this class 

 of treatment slowly and gradually tells on him, and 

 wears him out. Of this I feel certain. A special and 

 systematic course of training, like that of the Oxford 

 and Cambridge boat crews, or athletes in general have 



