MAMMALIA—CAMEL: 325 
to bear not only the weight of their body, but also the burdens with which 
they are laden. These poor animals must suffer a great deal, as they make 
lamentable cries, especially when they are overloaded ; and, notwithstand- 
ing they are continually abused, they have as much spirit as docility. At 
the first sign they bend their legs under their bodies, and kneeling upon the 
ground, they are loaded, without the trouble of lifting the load a great 
height, which must happen, were they to stand upright. As soon as they 
are loaded, they raise themselves up again without any assistance or sup= 
port; and the conductor, mounted on one of them, precedes the whole troop, 
who follow him at the same pace as he leads. They have need of neither 
whip or spur, to excite them; but, when they begin to be fatigued, their 
conductors support their spirits, or rather charm their weariness, by a song, 
or the sound of some instrument. When they want to prolong the route, 
or double the day’s journey, they give them an hour’s rest; after which, 
renewing their song, they again proceed on their way for many hours more; 
and the singing continues until they stop. Then the camels again kneel 
down on the earth, to be relieved from the burden. They remain in this 
cramped posture, with their belly crouched upon the earth, and sleep in the 
midst of their baggage, which is tied on again the next morning, with as 
much readiness and facility as it was untied before they went to rest. 
They have a great plenty of milk, which is thick, and nourishing even 
for tne human species, if it is mixed with more than an egual quantity of 
water. The females seldom do any labor while they are with young, but 
are suffered to bring forth at liberty. The profit which arises from their 
produce, and from their milk, perhaps surpasses that which is got from their 
labor. In general, the fatter the camels are, the more capable they are 
of enduring great fatigues. Their hunches appear to be formed only from 
the superabundance of nourishment; for, in long journeys, where they are 
obliged to stint them in their food, and where they suffer both hunger and 
thirst, these hunches gradually diminish, and are reduced almost even, and 
the eminences are only discovered by the height of the hair, which is al ways 
much longer upon these parts than upon any other part of the back. 
The young camel sucks its mother a year; and when they want « ‘ring 
him up so as to make him strong and robust, they leave him at Linerty to 
suck or graze for a longer time, nor begin to load him, or put him to labor, 
till he has attained the age of four years. The camel commonly lives forty 
or fifty years. 
The camel is not only of greater value than the elephant, but perhaps 
not of less than the horse, the ass, and the ox, all united together. He 
alone carries as much as two mules. He not only eats less, but likewise 
feeds on herbs as coarse as the ass. The female furnishes milk a longer 
time than the cow. The flesh of the young camels is good and wholesome, 
like veal; their hair is finer, and more sought after than the finest wool ; 
there is nota part of them, even to their excrements, from which some 
