But for this invaluable animal, the desert itself would ever have remained impassable and unknown to man. On it alone depends the existence of the nomadic tribes of the Orient, the whole commercial intercourse of North Africa and Southwest Asia; and no wonder that the Bedouin prizes it, along with the fruit-teeming date-palm, as the most precious gift of Allah. Other animals have been formed for the forest, the water, the savannah; to be the guide, the carrier, the companion, the purveyor of all man’s wants in the desert, is the camel’s destiny.
Wonderfully has he been shaped for this peculiar life, formed to endure privations and fatigues under which all but he would sink. On examining the camel’s foot, it will at once be seen how well it is adapted for walking on a loose soil, as the full length of its two toes is provided with a broad, expanded, and elastic sole. Thus the camel treads securely and lightly over the unstable sands, while he would either slip or sink on a muddy ground. He can support hunger longer than any other mammiferous animal, and is satisfied with the meanest food. Frugal, like his lord the wiry Bedouin, the grinding power of his teeth and his cartilaginous palate enable him to derive nutriment from the coarsest shrubs, from thorny mimosas and acacias, or even from the stony date-kernels, which his master throws to him after having eaten the sweet flesh in which they are imbedded.
For many days he can subsist without drinking, as the pouchlike cavities of his stomach—a peculiarity which distinguishes him from all other quadrupeds, perhaps, with the sole exception of the elephant—form a natural cistern or reservoir, whose contents can be forced upwards by muscular contraction, to meet the exigencies of the journey. It is frequently believed that this liquid remains constantly limpid and palatable, and that in cases of extreme necessity camels are slaughtered to preserve the lives of the thirsty caravan; but Burckhardt never heard of the Arabs resorting to this expedient, nor did he think it likely they would do so, as their own destruction must be involved in that of the beast on which they rode, and the lukewarm liquid thus obtained, besides affording a very poor supply, would be sufficiently nauseous to make even a Tantalus turn away disgusted.
But the ‘ship of the desert’ is not only provided with water for the voyage, but also with liberal stores of fat, which are chiefly accumulated in the hump; so that this prominence, which gives it so deformed an appearance, is in reality of the highest utility—for should food be scarce, and this is almost always the case while journeying through the desert, internal absorption makes up in some measure for the deficiency, and enables the famished camel to brave for some time longer the fatigues of the naked waste. This is so well known to the Bedouin that the first thing he examines about his camel when preparing for a long journey is the hump: should he find it large he knows that the animal will endure considerable fatigue even with a very moderate allowance of food, for he believes in the proverb that the ‘camel can subsist for an expedition on the fat of its own hump.’ Yet all mortal endurance has its limits, and even the camel, though so well provided against hunger and thirst, must frequently succumb to the excess of his privations, and the bleached skeletons of the much-enduring animal strewed along the road mark at once the path of the caravan and the dreadful sufferings of a desert-journey.
BACTRIAN CAMEL.
DROMEDARY.
While the Bactrian Camel with a double hump ranges from Turkestan to China, the single-hump camel or dromedary, originally Arabian, has spread in opposite directions towards the East Indies, the Mediterranean, and the Niger, and is used in Syria, Egypt, Persia, and Barbary, as the commonest beast of burden. It serves the robber, but it serves also the peaceful merchant, or the pilgrim, as he wanders to Mecca to perform his devotions at the prophet’s tomb. In long array, winding like a snake, the caravan traverses the desert. Each dromedary is loaded, according to its strength, with from six hundred to a thousand pounds, and knows so well the limits of its endurance, that it suffers no overweight, and will not stir before it be removed. Thus, with slow and measured pace, the caravan proceeds at the rate of ten or twelve leagues a day, often requiring many a week before attaining the end of its journey.
When we consider the deformity of the camel, we cannot doubt that its nature has suffered considerable changes from the thraldom and unceasing labours of more than one millennium. Its servitude is of older date, more complete, and more irksome, than that of any other domestic animal—of older date, as it inhabits the countries which history points out to us as the cradle of mankind; more complete, as all other domestic animals still have their wild types roaming about in unrestrained liberty, while the whole camel race is doomed to slavery; more irksome, finally, as it is never kept for luxury or state like so many horses, or for the table like the ox, the pig, or the sheep, but is merely used as a beast of transport, which its master does not even give himself the trouble to attach to a cart, but whose body is loaded like a living waggon, and frequently even remains burdened during sleep.