154 ^-^^ Poets' Beasts. 



" Even the camel feels, 

 Shot through his withered heart, the fiery blast." 



But it will hardly be believed that the *' ship of the desert " 

 takes an immoral advantage of this kindly arrangement to 

 enjoy the deplorable pleasures of illicit tippling. Yet such 

 is said to be the sad fact, for the date juice (so it is stated) 

 sometimes finds its way into these water cavities, lies there, 

 and ferments ; so that while every one is admiring the camel 

 as such a prodigious teetotaller, the Bedouin quadruped has 

 really got a spirit-cask inside it instead of a water-butt. 



In spite, however, of this grievous falling away from Islam, 

 the camel receives extraordinary honour from the Faithful. 

 Are not the names of Al Kaswa and Al Adha, the camels 

 of Mahomet, as sacred to the Arab as those of any of the 

 nine wives of the Prophet ? And has not Mahomet pro- 

 mised the camel all the enjoyments of Paradise — which no 

 other animals share with it except Al Borak, the Prophet's 

 horse, and Ketura, the Dog of the Seven Sleepers, Tobit's 

 dog, Balaam's ass, and the cuckoo? When it carries the 

 sacred cloth to Mecca in the annual pageant-pilgrimage of 

 Al Sherif, what man in all the caravan has such honour of 

 Islam as the camel that bears the musnud ? Had it not 

 been for a camel would Zem-Zem ever have been found, 

 and without Zem-Zem would man have ever attained to 

 Paradise ? 



One poet speaks of its " ear attentive," though the camel's 

 ear is certainly not a " feature " of the animal. Its hearing 

 is dull — though it is not so deaf but that it stops when it 

 hears no voices — and the ears themselves are so small that 

 the Arabs have a legend to account for it. Once, they say, 

 it had long ears and asked Allah for hoins to match them, 

 but Allah in reply cropped its ears. 



Spenser has Avarice riding on a camel, and elsewhere 

 speaks of it as "simple" and the victim of carnivorous 

 ferocity, the tiger and — the boar ! 



