514 UNGULATA. 



natural thirst of the animal has been supplied. After a Camel has been 

 accustomed to journeying across the hot and arid sand-wastes,, it learns 

 wisdom by experience, and contrives to lay by a much greater supply 

 than would be accumulated by a young, inexperienced animal. 



Buffon has said that the Camel is the real treasure of the East. It 

 feeds the inhabitants with its milk and flesh, and its hair furnishes them 

 with clothes. Without its use as a beast of burden, nations separated 

 from each other by vast stretches of desert could not carry on any trade. 

 Without it, the Arab could not inhabit those arid countries in which he 

 dwells. With it, this "ship of the desert," as the Eastern nations have 

 called it in their figurative and symbolical language, life is possible even 

 in such places as Buffon has called " the blank spots in nature." 



THE CAMEL OF ARABIA. 



The Camel, Camelus Arabicus, or Dromedary, Camelus Dromcdarius, 

 (Plate XXXVIII), has only one hump. It attains a height of about six 

 to seven feet, and a length of from nine to ten feet. Many varieties are 

 found, arising from difference of location. The Camel of the desert is a 

 thin, tall, long-legged creature ; that of the cultivated regions of North 

 Africa is a heavy, stout animal. Between a Bishareen or pure-bred camel 

 of the Nomad tribes, and a common pack-camel of Egypt there is as great 

 a difference as between the pure Arab steed and a Flemish dray-horse. 

 The term Dromedary is ordinarily restricted to the high-bred animals 

 used for riding. 



The Camel is found at present only as a domestic animal, in the 

 regions of Africa lying north of the twelfth degree of latitude, and of the 

 extreme west of Asia. Its distribution coincides with that of the Arabian 

 race. From Arabia it has spread eastward through Syria to Persia, 

 where the two-humped, or Bactrian camel appears, and westward 

 through Africa to the shores of the Atlantic Ocean. There is no repre- 

 sentation of this very remarkable beast in the Egyptian monuments, but 

 it is mentioned in Egyptian documents of the fourteenth century before 

 Christ. In the Bible, the earliest mention of the Camel is in the Book of 

 Genesis, where we read that Abram took on his journey "sheep and 

 oxen and camels" (Gen. xii, 16). Many years after, we are told how 

 Rebekah offered water to Jacob's camels at the well, and when Jacob 

 was about to leave Laban camels are mentioned (Gen. xxiv, 10-19) as 



