Useful Knowledge: Volume 3. Animals / Or, a familiar account of the various productions of nature

by William Bingley

ORDER V.—PECORA.

76. The ARABIAN CAMEL, or DROMEDARY (Camelus dromedarius, Fig. 7), is distinguishable from every other specics of camel, by having a single bunch upon the middle of its back.

This animal, which is a native of many of the deserts of Asia and Africa, is of a tawny grey colour, and has soft hair, which is longer on the neck, under the throat, and on the haunch, than elsewhere.

The Arabian, like all other species of camel, has its upper lip cleft, and its feet with two long hoofs on which it treads, and two others shorter, which do not touch the ground.

These animals constitute the principal source of riches, and the whole force and security, of the Arabians. They are the only beasts by which the inhabitants of the sandy deserts of many parts of Asia could travel or convey their burdens. Their tough and spongy feet, which are peculiarly adapted both to the climate and the country, and their abstemious temperament, but particularly their capability of travelling without water, for many successive days, enable them to perform such journeys as would destroy, probably, any other species of quadruped. The caravans, or troops of merchants, that traverse, in all directions, the deserts of Egypt and Arabia, are always accompanied by camels, which are often more in number than the men. These commercial travels are sometimes to the distance of 700 or 800 leagues, and are usually performed at the rate of ten or twelve leagues a day, the camels being, every night, unloaded to rest and feed. For the latter purpose, if better provender cannot be had, they are contented with a small quantity of dates or a few beans, together with the scattered and oftentimes bitter herbage which the desert affords. The burden of each camel usually weighs about half a ton; and, at the command of his conductor, he kneels down for the greater convenience of being loaded. It is from this practice that we account for those horny parts that are observable on the bellies, knees, and limbs, even of the animals that are exhibited in England. Camels are trained, from the earliest part of their life, to the labours which they are afterwards to perform: and, with this view, when but a few days old, their limbs are folded under their body, and they are compelled to remain on the ground whilst they are loaded with a weight, which is gradually increased as they increase in strength. As soon as they have acquired sufficient strength they are trained to the course, and their emulation is excited by the example of horses or of other camels.

The pace of the camel is a high and swinging trot, which, to persons unaccustomed to it, is at first disagreeable and apparently dangerous, but is afterwards sufficiently pleasant and secure. The Arabians, in general, ride on a saddle that is hollowed in the middle, and has, at each bow, a piece of wood placed upright, or sometimes horizontally, by which the rider keeps himself in the seat. A ring is inserted into the nostrils of the camel, to which a cord is affixed; and this serves as a bridle to guide and stop him, or to make him kneel when the rider wishes to dismount. Mr. Bruce informs us that, in the caravans of one of the Abyssinian tribes, the people sometimes ride two together on each camel, and sit back to back.

The camels of Sahara are probably more fleet than any that are known; and, on these animals, the Arabs, with their loins, breast, and ears bound round, to prevent the injurious effects of percussion from the quickness of motion, can cross that great desert in a few days. With a goat's skin or a porous earthen pitcher filled with water, a few dates, and some ground barley, the Arab travels from Timbuctoo to Morocco, feeding his camel but once upon the road. In one instance a camel was known to travel from Fort St. Joseph, on the river Senegal, to the house of Messrs. Cabane and Depras at Mogador, a distance of more than 1000 miles, in seven days.

It has been observed that the camel is the most completely and most laboriously enslaved of all animals; the most completely, because, in the other kinds of domestic animals, we find at least some individuals in their natural state, and which have not yet been subdued by man: but the whole species of the camel is enslaved; and not any of them are now to be found in their primitive state of independence and liberty. He is the most laboriously enslaved because he has never been trained, but as a beast of burden whom man has not harnessed nor taught to draw, but whose body is considered a living carriage which may be loaded and oppressed.

The above are not the only uses of the camel. The hair or fleece of these animals, which is renewed every year, and which regularly falls off in the spring, is so soft that the finest parts of it may be manufactured into stuffs of beautiful texture: and, in Europe, when mixed with the fur of the beaver ([69]), it is sometimes made into hats. The inhabitants in some parts of Sahara live in tents formed of woven camel's hair; this forms a thick covering completely water-proof. After the hair has been stripped off, the skin is converted into leather.

In Arabia the milk of the camel is a most important article of nutriment; and the flesh, though dry and hard, is not unpalatable, particularly when young. By the inhabitants of Egypt camels' flesh is so much esteemed, that, at Cairo and Alexandria, it was formerly forbidden to be sold to Christians. In many parts of Africa the tongues are salted and dried, both for use and exportation; and, with the ancient Romans, the heels of camels were eaten as a great delicacy.