HERE AND THERE IN NORTHERN AFRICA 



65 



and are really dromedaries. Certain 

 breeds of camels can withstand the great 

 heat of the Sahara Desert and others that 

 of the zero weather of Tibet and China. 



The ordinary camels of northern 

 Africa (dromedaries) cost from 150 to 

 300 francs (30 to 60 dollars) apiece, and 

 they live on almost anything that they 

 can find to eat by the roadside; hence it 

 costs next to nothing for their native 

 Arab owners to keep them. Should a 

 European own camels and attempt to 

 feed them with hay and grain, he would 

 find that they ate a great deal, and that 

 it would cost at least a dollar a day for 

 each one. 



During the Italian war in Tripoli the 

 usual price for hiring a camel and its 

 driver to take food supplies from Ben 

 Garden to the Turkish camp was from 

 3 to 3>4 francs a day (60 to 70 cents). 

 Between Kairouan and Sbeitla are many 

 miles of bad land, where almost nothing 

 thrives save the prickly pear. This has 

 heen cultivated by the natives, is rented 

 out in great tracts, and has become a 

 source of comfortable income. 



It is amazing to see the rapidity with 

 which a herd of 500 camels will eat to 

 the ground a large pasturage of prickly 

 pear from 8 to 10 feet high. Leaves, 

 stems, prickles and all, disappear like 

 magic. 



HOW THE CAMELS HUMP GETS EAT 



Throughout southern Tunisia and Al- 

 geria the natives keep all their date 

 stones and give them to exhausted 

 camels, weary from their long Sahara 

 march. 



The camel resists at first, and the date 

 stones, moistened in a little water, are 

 pushed forcibly, by the handful, down 

 the camel's throat, after it has been made 

 to kneel, and then securely fastened. In 

 two or three days the camel learns to 

 eat them of its own accord. The natives 

 say that these date stones make the hump 

 of the camel strong and stiff. 



The camel in its long march across the 

 Sahara frequently finds very little to eat 

 and lives on the fat of its own hump. 

 When this continues during a long time, 

 the hump of the camel becomes flabby 

 and almost disappears. The African 



broad-tailed sheep lives in the same way 

 on the fat of its own tail. 



The flesh of a camel is eaten by the 

 natives throughout the Sahara and north- 

 ern Africa. The greatest delicacy is the 

 hump, which contains a great deal of fat. 

 One can always tell the condition of the 

 animal by observing its hump. When a 

 camel is weary, after a long march across 

 the Sahara, its hump almost disappears, 

 whereas when it starts out on a journey 

 the hump is well defined. 



Camels of Tunisia, Algeria, and Tripo- 

 litania are used almost entirely as beasts 

 of burden, although in Tunisia one occa- 

 sionally sees them drawing two-wheeled 

 carts, or plowing. The usual weight of 

 the burdens carried by a camel varies 

 from 550 to 600 pounds ; this is the aver- 

 age for the camels going from town to 

 town along the coast or the borders of 

 the Sahara. 



Should they be planning to cross the 

 Sahara, the weight of the burden would 

 be less, as the strain of the month's 

 journey through the desert is tremen- 

 dous. The usual march when crossing 

 the desert is 30 kilometers a day (about 

 20 miles), with an occasional day's rest. 



When a camel is being ladened it keeps 

 up a continual snarling, and should it be 

 overburdened it refuses to arise. 



Most camels are vicious and their bite 

 is very dangerous. Hardly a week passes 

 at the large native hospital in Tunis but 

 some unfortunate camel driver dies of 

 blood poisoning caused by a camel's bite. 



The grinding motion of a camel's jaw 

 crushes to pulp whatever it bites ; so that 

 the arm or leg has to be amputated, and 

 blcod poisoning usually sets in before the 

 patient can reach the hospital. 



The ordinary camel would have diffi- 

 culty in crossing the desert unless it were 

 born and bred in it, and it would be folly 

 for a man setting out on such a journey 

 to select camels that were unused to the 

 desert. The probabilities are that his car- 

 avan would never reach its journey's end. 



Great care must be taken in selecting 

 beasts of burden for a caravan trip 

 across the Sahara, and camels must be 

 secured at towns in the desert, where 

 Sahara camels, accustomed to the great 

 wastes of sand, are obtainable. Those 



