ARABIAN CAMEL. 15 ! 
sionally’to moisten it in its passage to the true 
stomach for several days. 
The came! is the most temperate of all animals, 
and it can continue to travel several days without 
drinking. In those vast deserts, ^vtiere the earth 
is every where dry and sandy, where there are 
neither birds nor beasts, neither insects nor vege- 
tables, where nothing is to be seen but hills of „ 
sand and. heaps of bones, there the camel travels, 
posting forward, without requiring either drink or 
pasture, and is often found six or seven days with- 
out any sustenance whatsoever. Its feet are form- 
ed for travelling upon sand, and utterly unfit 
for moist or marshy places ; the inhabitants, there- 
fore, find a most useful assistant in this animal, 
where no other could subsist, and by its means, 
cross those deserts with safety, which would be 
impassable by any other method of conveyance. 
An animal, thus formed for a sandy and desert 
region, cannot be propagated in one of a different 
nature. Many vain efforts have been tried to pro- 
pagate the camel in Spain ; they have been trans- 
ported into America, but have multiplied in 
neither. It is true, indeed, that they may be 
brought into these countries, and may, perhaps, be 
found to produce there; but the care of keeping 
them is so great, and the accidents to which they 
are exposed from the changeableness of the climate, 
are so many, that they cannot answer the care of 
keeping 1 . In a few years also, they are seen to de- 
generate ; their strength and their patience forsake 
them ; and instead of making the riches, they be- 
come the burden of their keepers. 
But it is very different in Arabia, arid those 
countries where the camel is turned to useful pur- 
poses. It is there considered as a sacred animal, 
without whose help the natives could neither sub- 
sist, traffic, nor travel ; its milk makes a part of 
