THE CAMEL. 193 



value of these histories by not confining themselves to the facts, 

 but, after the manner of the modern novehst, must inform their 

 readers what the animals, — their heroes and heroines, — not only- 

 do but what they think, and the chain of reasoning by which they 

 arrive at their conclusions. No villain of a "penny dreadful" 

 could have matured and perpetrated a better revenge than this 

 camel. Mr. PalgravBj who appears to have been a Cumberland or 

 " thought-reader " among camels, tells us that the animal thought 

 the boy had no right to strike it hard ; having arrived at this 

 conclusion it resolved to take revenge, but it would dissemble for 

 the present and bide its time^ There was no certainty that it 

 would again have an opportunity, for the boy might never again 

 have been its driver ; but perhaps camels may have the power of 

 seeing into the future as well as of reasoning. "When at last, 

 after brooding over its wrongs, the opportunity for the denouement 

 of its plot arrives, the camel, the villain of the melodrama, peers 

 carefully around in every direction to see no one was looking, and 

 finding the road apparently clear, perpetrates the crime, and, as 

 usual, made some fatal blunder that led to its own undoiag. 



Animals will undoubtedly take dislikes and hatreds to certain 

 human beings, and evince it by attacking or even killing them ; 

 but whether they are capable of concocting plots, reasoning from 

 deductions, logically thinking out the method of their revenge, 

 patiently and with self-communion awaiting their opportunity, 

 and behaving generally as though their reasoning powers were 

 greater than those of a large portion of the human race, is one 

 that on the face of it is absurd, for if it were the case, the horse, 

 elephant, and camel would never be subservient to man at all, 

 and the animals would soon gain the ascendency, for they could 

 never be kept in subjection. The dog, that most intelligent of 

 all animalsj does not exhibit any such powers, although its in- 

 stincts enable it to perform duties and deeds that are in full 

 sympathy with those of its master. Camels are, moreover, the 

 most stupid perhaps of all domesticated beasts. Mr. Palgrave 



proves too much. 



Some few years ago a correspondent of the Ttmes, probably 

 Dr. W. H. Russell, writing from India, remarks : " The utile was 







