The Halt in the Desert at Night—The Story Teller
Although long a captive, and for ages, perhaps, the most serviceable of all the creatures which man has won from the wilds, the camel is still only partly domesticated, having never acquired even the small measure of affection for his master which we find in the other herbivorous animals which have been won to the service of man. The obedience which he renders is but a dull submission to inevitable toil. The intelligence which he shows is very limited, and, so far as I can judge from the accounts of those who have observed him, there is but little variation in his mental qualities. As a whole, the creature appears to be innately the dullest and least improvable of all our servitors. The fact is, this animal belongs to an ancient and lowly type of mammals characterized by relatively small brains, and therefore of weak intelligence; but, for its singular serviceableness in drought-ridden countries, it would probably have been hunted off the earth by the early men, as have been many other remnants of the ancient life.
Camels Feeding
It is somewhat characteristic of the older forms of animals, those which took shape in the earlier Tertiary periods, that they are less variable than those which acquired their characteristics in times nearer our own. It is a fact well known to the students of paleontology, that species and genera which have been long on the earth are apt to become in a way rigid as regards their qualities of body and mind. It is an interesting fact that, although the camel can readily be transplanted to many other parts of the world, where the physiographic conditions are similar to those of the realm where he has served man so well, he has never been thoroughly successful except in the regions where he has been in use for ages. In the desert regions of the Cordilleras of America, in South Africa, and in Australia, various experiments go to show that the creature could be perfectly reconciled to its environment. Many years ago a lot of camels were brought to the valley of the Rio Grande with a view to their utilization in that region, which closely resembles the desert countries about the Mediterranean. These animals were thoroughly successful in meeting the climatal conditions of the region. They proved as strong and as fertile as in their natural realms. Although it is said they survive to the present day, they have never been of any service to the people.
