20 



THE USES OF THE CAMEL. 



are of course short. Those employed on the Grand Duke's 

 farm, in Tuscany, carry seventeen hundred pounds, Tuscan 

 weight, equivalent to twelve hundred pounds English, and 

 work regularly under this pack from sunrise to sunset. The 

 statements as to the loads carried by camels in Egypt, Euro- 

 pean Turkey, Arabia, and other farts of Asia, vary from four 

 hundred to fifteen hundred pounds. The usual load of the 

 cotton-carriers in Persia is one thousand pounds. 



A Erench nobleman, the Duke de Luynes, has recently trans- 

 ported on camels, from Jaffa to the Dead Sea, the compartments 

 of a small iron steamer, which he has there set afloat, much to 

 the horror of the Bedouins, who regard it as Satan's last mani- 

 festation on those accursed waters. This is an item which our 

 mining friends will do well to make a note of 



The patience and cheerful perseverance exhibited by the . 

 camel under his wearisome packs is truly something to admire. . 

 You see him coming into town, from a journey, it may be, of 

 weeks, his back bending under his burden, yet striding im- 

 periously through the narrow streets, with head erect, swaying 

 gently to and fro, and calm philosopliic eye, and face tranquil 

 as the unworldly sphinx, as if really the heavy load on the 

 other side of his long neck were borne by some other animal 

 than himself, with whose affliction he could not possibly be 

 expected to sympathize. 



It is to be considered, in perusing the statements of travellers 

 as to the ordinary camel-load in far Eastern countries, that these 

 loads are somewhat modified by the fact that the commodities 

 thus transported are usually of the most precit)us and costly 

 character. The long journeys which they make, and the neces- 

 sarily high cost of freight, preclude the carrying in this way of 

 common fabrics and the life-sustaining grains. These are not, 

 as a rule, articles of international traffic, but are raised and 

 manufactured in the countries where they are consumed. 

 Camels coming into Algiers from the desert usually bring 

 valuable dyestuffs, fine wool, camel's hair, rich skins, tobacco, 

 palm-oil, ostrich-feathers, ivory, and gold-dust. There's a glow 

 of wealth, an odor of spicery, and a flashing of jewels about 

 these camel-freights ever since the time when Joseph's brethren 

 lifted up their eyes as they sat at meat, " and looked, and behold 

 a company of Ishmaelites came from Gilead, with their camels 



