410 NATURAL HISTORY OF ARABIA. 



she* «tick of the rider than to the bridle. The drivers have 

 a song full of guttural sounds that they chant, and by which 

 the animals know to halt, walk, trot, eat, drink, stop, or lie 

 down. In loading or unloading they are taught to obey a 

 particular signal, crouching down upon the ground with their 

 legs bent under them, so that the rider may get off and mount 

 again without trouble. They are content with the scantiest 

 fare, — a bunch of dry grass or the stunted shrubs of the 

 desert. Their ordinary food is a ball of paste (maabQitk) 

 weighing about a pound, made of barley-meal and water, 

 which each receives in the evening ; and this is all the daily 

 expense of these useful creatures. The value of the camel 

 depends of course on its kind and quality. In Hejaz, Burck- 

 hardt states that the price of a good one was sixty dollars, or 

 14:1. ; but they sometimes cost 150, or 35/. ; and Saoud has 

 been known to pay as much as 300, or 70/., for one of the 

 Oman breed. They are subject to various defects and dis- 

 eases, which very much affect their value ; such as stiffness 

 of the neck, tremor and swellings in the hind-legs, pustules 

 about the mouth, ulceration below the chest, and colic and 

 diarrhoea, which generally prove fatal. To most of these 

 distempers the Arabs apply cautery, as well as to the wounds 

 or injuries which are often occasioned by bad pack-saddles, 

 or burdens of too great a weight. No pain, however, pro- 

 vokes the generous animal to refuse the load or throw it on 

 the ground. Overcome with hunger and fatigue, it spends 

 its latest breath in its master's service, and leaves its bones 

 to whiten and rot in the desert. 



Dromedary . — This animal was considered by the ancients 

 as a distinct species of the camel. Diodorus and Strabo 

 gave it the appellation of dvomos or the runner, to distinguish 

 it from the Bacht, or Bactrian camel, which was reckoned best 

 adapted for carrj'ing burdens. It is, however, rather a va- 

 riety of the same species, and is found sometimes with a 

 single and sometimes with a double hump. It breeds readily 

 with the common came!. The Anatolian or Turkoman race 

 are produced between an Arab she-camel and the double- 

 humped dromedrary from the Crimea. A dromedary and a 

 she Turkoman produce a small handsome camel (called 

 taous), which has a very tlixk growth of long hair under the 

 neck reaching almost to ihe ground ; and two humps, one of 

 which the natives cut pii' to render it more fit for bearing a 



