62 THE CAMEL'S MORAL QUALITIES. 



Antoine, curious to essay this new species of equestrian practice, begged 

 a Kalmuck in the escort to lend him his camel. The request being 

 readily granted, he perched himself on the extremity of the saddle, in 

 " measureless contentment " with his lofty post, and by no means 

 mindful of the malicious smiles exchanged between the Cossacks and 

 the camel-drivers. Scarcely had the beast advanced four paces, how- 

 ever, before his face turned pale, and he clung to the saddle, with a 

 most pitiful countenance, and imploring help in the most agonizing 

 tones. " One need be a Kalmuck," says Madame de Hell, " to be 

 capable of enduring the trot of a camel. His jerky gait shakes the 

 body so severely, that a long journey is a positive punishment, even 

 for the Cossacks. The unfortunate Antonio, left some distance behind 

 by the escort, made a vain effort to overtake us ; he was compelled, 

 willy-nilly, to retain his steed as far as the Caspian Sea, where he 

 arrived about two hours after ourselves. I have never seen a man 

 more demoralized. His groans, when he was lifted off the camel, 

 were so lamentable, that we really hardly knew what to think of 

 his condition." 



As for the camel's moral qualities, the same lively writer furnishes 

 a very different estimate to what we gather from the majority of 

 travellers. She represents him as idle, pettish, and very vindictive. 



" All that we had read," says she, " of the rapidity of these ships 

 of the desert ; their insensibility to fatigue, to hunger, to thirst ; their 

 tractability to the will of man exceeding the obedience of the leaf to 

 the wind, was completely contradicted by the conduct of these quad- 

 rupeds, little careful to maintain their reputation for agility. Despite 

 of a stout cord passed through one of the nostrils, and which caused 

 them a sharp pain every time they became refractory, they would not 

 march more than two successive hours without flinging themselves on 

 the ground. We had to battle with them incessantly to rouse them 

 from their torpor, and prevent them from biting one another. When- 

 ever a camel-driver pulled a little roughly his animal's guiding-string, 

 we heard a succession of cries, all the more frightful from their resem- 

 blance to the human voice. In a word, these camels behaved so ill 



