Some Harmless Beasts. 151 



Here and there besides are pleasant touches of camel life 

 — and what a poem the beast really is ! — " the tinkling 

 throng of laden camels," " the browsing camels' tinkling 

 bells"— 



" 'Neath palm trees' shade 

 Amid their camels laid 

 The pastoral tribes with all their flocks at rest." 



But, as a rule, the poets' attention is unfortunately turned 

 to those aspects of the camel which are now known to be 

 fictions. Leyden matches it against " the swiftest courser," 

 and Heber and Sir William Jones, both of whom should 

 have known better, compare the camel with the ostrich for 

 speed — *' the camels bounded o'er the flowery lawn like the 

 swift ostrich " — and make it even excel it — " not the ostrich 

 speed of fire my camel can excel." As a matter of fact, 

 and in spite of its having carried Mahomet in four jumps 

 from Jerusalem to Mecca, seven miles an hour is the 

 camel's best pace, nor can it maintain this rate over three 

 hours. Its usual speed is about five miles an hour — a 

 slow, lounging pace beyond which it is dangerous, with 

 nine camels out of ten, to urge them, or else, as Asiatics 

 say, they " break their hearts " and die on the spot. For, 

 once a camel has been pressed beyond this speed and is 

 spent, it kneels down, and not all the wolves of Asia will 

 make it budge again. The camel remains where it kneels, 

 and where it kneels it dies. 



And this stubbornness is really what the poets call 

 "patience." An Oriental proverb says that "the camel 

 curses its parents when it has to go up hill, and its Maker 

 when it has to go down," and " camelishness " is a term of 

 abuse for one who is obstinate past all reasoning. As a 

 matter of fact the camel is one of the most impatient brutes 

 in existence ; it will remain motionless as long as you per- 

 mit it to do so, or till hunger arouses it. But remaining 



