Few stories are more familiar and widely spread than that of the Lost
Camel, which occurs in the opening of the romance. It was formerly, and
perhaps is still, reproduced in English school reading-books. Voltaire,
in chapter iii. of his "Zadig; ou, La Destinee" (the materials of which
he is said to have derived from Geuelette's "Soirees Bretonnes,")
has a version in which a lost palfrey and a she dog are described
by the "sage" from the traces they had left on the path over which
they passed. The great Arabian historian and traveller Mas'udi, in
his "Meadows of Gold, and Mines of Gems," written A.D. 943, gives
the story of the Lost Camel, and from Mas'udi it was probably taken
into the MS. text of the "Thousand and One Nights," procured in the
East (?Constantinople) by Wortley Montague, and now preserved in the
Bodleian Library, Oxford. [101] In that MS. it forms an incident in
the story of the Sultan of Yeman and his Three Sons: the princes,
after their father's death, quarrel over the succession to the throne,
and at length agree to lay their respective claims before one of the
tributary princes. On the road one of them remarks, "A camel has lately
passed this way loaded with grain on one side, and with sweetmeats
on the other." The second observes, "and the camel is blind of one
eye." The third adds, "and it has lost its tail." The owner comes up,
and on hearing their description of his beast, forces them to go before
the king of the country, to whom they explain how they discovered
the defects of the camel and its lading. In a Persian work, entitled
"Nigaristan," three brothers rightly conjecture in like manner that
a camel which had passed, and which they had not seen, was blind
of an eye, wanted a tooth, was lame, and laden with oil on the one
side, and honey on the other. The story is also found in the Hebrew
Talmud. Two slaves are overheard by their master conversing about a
camel that had gone before them along the road. It was blind of an
eye, and laden with two skin bottles, one of which contained wine,
the other oil. In a Siberian version (Radloff), three youths are met
by a man who asks them if they had seen his camel, to which they reply
by describing the colour and defects of the animal so exactly that he
accuses them to the Prince of having stolen it. "I have lost a camel,
my lord," said he, "and when I met these three young men we saluted,
and I told them that I had lost my camel. Quoth one of these youths,
'Was thy camel of a light colour?' The second asked, 'was thy camel
lame?' And the third, 'Was it not blind of an eye?' I answered
Yes to their questions. Now decide, my lord. It is evident these
young men have stolen my camel." Then the Prince asked the eldest,
"How did you know that the camel was of a light colour?" He replied,
"By some hairs which has fallen on the ground when it had rubbed
itself against trees." The two others gave answers similar to those
in our version. Then said the Prince to the man, "Thy camel is lost;
go and look for it." So the stranger mounted his horse and departed.