WILD CAMELS IN EUROPE. 99 



no doubt, also at Jerez. I heard of them first in 1856. . . . 

 What Mr. Buck says of the habits of the camel is, as far 

 as I can remember, pretty much what I heard from 

 several of the miardas of the Goto in 1872. . . . M3' son 

 reminds me of what I had quite forgotten, viz., that he 

 and our doctor saw some camels in the marisma some- 

 where on the proper right of the western branch of the 

 Guadalquivir last May (1883), when I was confined to my 

 ship by an attack of gout in the right hand." 



Lastly, we quote the following from a " Catalogue of the 

 Mammalia of Andalucia," bv Don Antonio Machado y 

 Nunez, published at Seville in 1869 : — " The first camels, 

 which were introduced with the object of breeding them, 

 came from the Canary Islands, and in a few years l)ecame 

 a herd of about eighty. In 1833, a few years after intro- 

 duction, they were used as beasts of burden and transport 

 in the province of Cadiz, employed in the carriage of 

 materials used in making the high road from Port St. 

 Mary to San Lucar de Barrameda (more than thirty years 

 ago), and also in conveyances to Ai'cos, Jerez, Chichlana, 

 and other towns. But some untoward accidents on the 

 roads through horses being frightened at the sight of such 

 strange animals,* and the necessity of separating them from 

 horses in the yards, combined with other matters easy to 

 remedy, caused them to fall into disuse as beasts of 

 burden and carriage, and thus the economy and advan- 

 tages obtained by their introduction were lost. They were 

 then used for agricultural pur^joses, and some lands which 

 Don Eafael de Barrera holds are at this time (1869) culti- 

 vated by the aid of camels, which are used for ploughing 

 and other agricultural work." 



* The repugnance evinced by horses towards the camel was known 

 a<;jes ago. At the battle of Sardis (b.c. 546) this equine weakness was 

 utilized by Cyrus in opposing to the Lydian cavalry a vanguard of 

 camels (Herodotvxs, Clio, pp. 78, 80). A similar stratagem was pro- 

 posed by Amurath I. at the decisive battle of Kossova between the 

 Ottoman army and the Confederate hosts of Servia, Bosnia, and 

 Wallachia, August 27th, 1389, but was abandoned in deference to the 

 fiery impetuosity of Prince Bajazet and some supposed precepts of the 

 Koran. 



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