16 



THE USES OF THE CAMEL. 



edary or running camel is of a different species from tlie ordi- 

 nary burden camel. He differs only in being of purer blood, 

 finer organization, and superior training ; as the race-liorse dif- 

 fers from the dray-horse in our streets. The ordinary pace of 

 the burden camel with full pack, when driven regularly, is from 

 three to five miles an hour, which they will keep up for twelve 

 hours on a stretch, and go for twenty or thirty days without 

 showing signs of fatigue. Some writers affirm that they do 

 better than this, while others place their performances at a 

 lower rate. It would not be fair, however, to measure the ani- 

 mal's capacity by what he actually performs in the East. The 

 Orientals place little value upon time, and have a disjointed, 

 shuffling habit of travelling, allowing their beasts to browse 

 along the road, and stopping at all sorts of odd times, and on 

 the most trivial pretences, in a way that would be quite irk- 

 some to our go-ahead race. I^evertheless, as express-riders or 

 mail-carriers, or when any sudden emergency compels them, 

 they scour the country with astonishing rapidity, and perform 

 feats that seem almost incredible. 



The speed of the dromedary or running camel is established 

 beyond question. The Hebrew word for dromedary is kirha- 

 routh^ which means " a swift beast," and is so translated in 

 Isaiah, 66th chapter and 20th verse. When David fell upon 

 the Amalekites, we read that " there escaped not a man of 

 them, save four hundred young men, which rode upon camels 

 and fled." 



In 1811 Mahomet Ali, when hastening to destroy tlie Mame- 

 lukes, rode the same camel from Suez to Cairo, eighty-four 

 miles, in a single night. Marsh states that a French officer in 

 the service of the Pacha repeated the same feat in thirteen 

 hours, and that two gentlemen of his acquaintance have per- 

 formed it in less than seventeen without a change of camel. 

 Laborde made the journey in the same time, and went from 

 Alexandria to Cairo, nearly one hundred and fifty miles, in 

 thirty-four hours. Colonel Chesney rode with four dromeda- 

 ries from Baarah to Damascus, nine hundred and fifty-eight 

 and a half miles, in nineteen days and a few hours (more than 

 fifty-four miles per day), the animals having no food but sucli 

 as they picked up on the desert. They averaged from forty- 

 four to forty-six paces per minute, with a length of step of six 



