"But what has that ill-looking hump to do with a trunk, I'd like to know?" continued his questioner.
GENERAL GORDON'S CAMEL.
"There are many more things you ought to 'like to know.' That ill-looking hump is his trunk, which his master sees is well packed with—fat—before he starts on the long journey over the deserts where he can't be sure of any grass or shrubs for days and days. But there is that trunk full on his back from which the camel picnics on the weary way."
"Oh! you don't say he carries water there too!"
"No; but near by, in another trunk or bottle. He has an extra supply in his stomach. Those 'clumsy' feet are beautifully formed for travelling the desert. Scientific folks might have studied for ages without discovering and patenting such a marvel of a desert foot.
"You see no beauty in his eyelashes and queer nose, but you would, after a day in the burning sun or flying sand of the desert. Why, my boy, there's no beast like him for use in his own land.
"Just see him, knelt there for his load of one thousand or fifteen hundred pounds, and objecting as plainly as a camel can, when a little too much is put upon him. Then rising up and moving on his way in such dignified patience, on and on, hour after hour, seventy-five or one hundred miles a day. Know of a horse that could do that, my boy?
"He is justly called the 'Ship of the Desert.'"
"'Ugly beast,' indeed!" repeated his father. "Think you Gordon called him so?"