ORDER RUMINANTIA. 41 



stitutional faculties and structure of the Camel, when re- 

 siding in the locality assigned him by nature; under another 

 atmosphere, his qualifications become less important, and 

 his conformation less applicable. In Tartary and Southern 

 Russia, where the Bactrian species (longer of body and 

 shorter of limb than the Arabian) is harnessed to wheel- 

 carriages, and even to the plough, the elevation of his 

 shoulders evidently produces a waste of strength ; and in a 

 country where herbage and water are proportionably abun- 

 dant, his sobriety is not required. If the Camel is trans- 

 ferred to rocky and mountainous regions, his feet soon 

 wear, and he ascends and descends with great awkward- 

 ness. If he be brought into temperate regions, the fre- 

 quent mud, and above all, the thawed snows, soften his 

 feet, and he is unable to work ; as is at least partially ex- 

 perienced in central and Northern Asia, notwithstanding 

 that the Bactrian Camel, again provided by nature for his 

 particular locality, has soles of greater hardness than the 

 Arabian, and the dissolution of the snow is exceedingly 

 rapid when once begun. 



Although the Greek and Roman writers take universally 

 as little notice of the Camel as an inhabitant of North- 

 western Africa or Egypt, as they speak repeatedly of him 

 in Syria, Arabia, and the rest of Western Asia, we may 

 conclude, from the above considerations, that the predes- 

 tined habitation of the genus was on the sandy deserts of 

 the Zahara, as well as the plains of Arabia, Persia, the 

 Indies, and Southern Tartary. 



The silence of profane writers is compensated by the 

 16th verse chap. xii. of Genesis, where Pharaoh, the King 

 of Egypt, bestows camels upon Abram ; consequently their 

 presence in the valley of the Nile is established before the 

 aera of the earliest Greek or Roman writers. In all ob- 

 vious cases, the intelligence of man may be considered as 

 acting in unison with the intentions of nature ; now, as 



