THE EUMINANT ORDER. 
229 
which it renders Man, by means of its strength, rapid move- 
ments, abstemiousness, patience, and docility. 
Buffon has said that gold and silk are not the real riches of 
the East, hut that the Camel is its chief treasure. In fact, this 
animal feeds the inhabitants of these countries, both with its 
milk and flesh, and furnishes clothes for them, fabricated from its 
long and soft hair. For centuries sal-ammoniac, so useful to the 
manufacturer, was solely obtained from its excrement. But it is 
chiefly as a means of conveyance and as a beast of burthen that it 
Fig. 72. — Camel’s Head. 
renders the most important service to Man. Without it those 
nations which are separated from one another by vast stretches of 
desert sand could not trade with each other. Without it the 
Arab could not inhabit those arid countries in which he dwells. 
With it, this “ ship of the desert,” as the Eastern nations have 
called it in their figurative and symbolical language, life is pos- 
sible even in such places as Buffon has called “ the blank spots in 
nature.” 
From time immemorial the Camel has been the only means of 
bearing commodities across the desert. By means of this patient 
