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The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare*s Time . 
and not so many thousand duckets. Of camels there are three kinds; 
whereof the first, being called hugiun , are grosse, and of a tall stature, 
and most fit to carrie burthens. The second kinde of camel is called 
becheti , and having a double bunch, are fit both to carrie burthens and 
to ride upon ; and these are bred onely in Asia. The third kind, called 
raguahill, are camels of a slender and low stature, which albeit they 
are unfit to carry burthens, yet doe they so excell the two other kinds 
in swiftnesse, that in the space of one day they will travell one hundred 
miles, and so continue over the desarts for eight or ten dayes together 
with very little provender: and these doe the principall Arabians of 
Numidia and the Moores of Libya usually ride upon.” ( Purchas , 
vol. ii. p. 842.) 
The kind, here mentioned, with the double bunch, is 
the Bakhtee, or Bactrian camel, found in Persia. By the 
third variety Leo probably means the lighter breed of 
camel, usually called a dromedary. 
Mr. Palgrave, in his book on Central and Eastern Arabia , 
1865, demolishes the common belief that the camel and 
the dromedary are distinct varieties. He says :— 
“ It may be well to make my readers aware, once for all, of the 
fact that the popular home idea of a dromedary having two humps 
and a camel one, or vice versa (for I have forgotten which of the 
animals is supplied with a duplicate boss in coloured picture-books), is 
a simple mistake. The camel and the dromedary in Arabia are the 
same identical genus and creature, excepting that the dromedary is a 
high-bred camel, and the camel a low-bred dromedary; exactly the 
same distinction which exists between a race-horse and a hack; both 
are horses, but the one of blood, the other not. The dromedary is the 
race-horse of his species, thin, elegant (or comparatively so), fine¬ 
haired, light of step, easy of pace, and much more enduring of thirst 
than the woolly, thick-built, heavy-footed, ungainly, and jolting camel. 
Both and each of them have only one hump, placed immediately 
behind their shoulders, where it serves as a fixing-point for the saddle 
or burden.” 
This modem account confirms the accuracy of Henry 
Timberley, a traveller contemporary with Shakspeare, 
who writes:— 
“ The dromedarie is like a camel, but that his head is lesse, bis 
legs longer, and a very small necke, the difference being as betweene 
a greyhound and a mastiff.” ( Purchas, vol. ii. p. 1642.) 
