Some Harmless Beasts. 153 



vacantly into distant space. And there it would patiently 

 starve to death. It was no use taking off its load ; the camel 

 had refused to " hold the fort " any longer, and, persisting 

 in thinking life impossible, insisted on dying. 



Nor, unfortunately for poetry, does the camel's abstinence 

 from water hold quite good in fact. It is one of the 

 thirstiest of animals, and ought not to be allowed to go 

 without water for any length of time, if it is expected to be 

 of any use. In this respect a horse has more endurance. 

 But Nature has provided the camel with an arrangement of 

 cells in the stomach which it can fill with water if it pleases. 



" Unwearied as the camel, day by day, 



Tracks through unwatered wilds his doleful wny, 

 Yet in bis breast the cherished draught retains. 

 To cool the fervid current in his veins." 



But if Montgomery had often ridden camels, he would 

 have wondered why the brute did not drink some of the 

 cherished draught sometimes, instead of wanting to re- 

 plenish itself at every possible opportunity. 



" The all-enduring camel, driven 

 Far from the diamond fountain by the palms. 

 Who toils across the middle moonlit nights. 

 Or when the white heats of the blinding noons 

 Beat from the concave sand, yet in him keeps 

 A draught of that sweet fountain that he loves. 

 To stay his feet from falling, and his spirit 

 From bitterness of death." 



Keats carries the idea one stage further, and has " slake 

 my greedy thirst with nectaroiis camel-draughts " — an ad- 

 missible prolongation of the original, inasmuch as it conveys 

 to the mind an immediate consciousness of the extreme 

 aridity of deserts — "long, long deserts scorch the camels 

 foot " — and the terrible drought from which the camel has 

 so often, poor beast, to suffer. 



