These two names do not include two different species, but only two
distinct races, subsisting from time immemorial in the camel species.
The principal, and perhaps the only perceptible character by which
they differ, consists in the camel's bearing two hunches on the back,
and the dromedary only one, who is also less, and not so strong as the
camel; but both of them herd and intermix together, and the production
from this cross breed is more vigorous, and of greater value, than the
others.
These mongrels form a secondary race, which mix and multiply among
themselves, and with the first race; so that in this species, as
well as in that of other domestic animals, there are many varieties,
the most general of which are relative to the difference of climate.
Aristotle has judiciously marked the two principal races; the first,
which has two hunches, under the name of the _Bactrian Camel_; and
the second under that of the _Arabian Camel_: the first are called
_Turkish_ and the others _Arabian Camels_. This distinction still
subsists, but it appears, since the discovery of those parts of Africa
and Asia which were unknown to the ancients, that the dromedary is,
without comparison, more numerous and more universal than the camel:
the last being seldom found in any other place than Turkestan, and some
other parts of the Levant; while the dromedary, more common than any
other beast of burthen in Arabia, is found in all the northern parts
of Africa, from the Mediterranean to the river Niger, and is also met
with in Egypt, in Persia, in Southern Tartary, and in all the northern
parts of India. The dromedary, therefore, occupies an immense tract of
land, while the camel is confined to narrow limits. The first inhabits
hot and parched regions; the second, a more moist soil and temperate
climate; and the whole species, as well the one as the other, appears
to be confined to a zone of three or four hundred leagues in breadth,
which spreads from Mauritania to China, for they subsist neither above
nor below this zone, and although a native of warm climates, this
animal is averse to those where the heat is excessive; his species ends
where that of the elephant begins, and it cannot exist either under
the burning heat of the torrid zone, or in the milder climates of the
temperate. It appears to be originally a native of Arabia, for that is
not only the country where they are the greatest in number, but where
they seem to be in the best condition. Arabia is the most dry country
in the world, and one in which water is the most scarce. The camel is
the least thirsty of all animals, and can pass several days without
any drink. The land is almost in every part dry and sandy. The feet of
the camel are formed to travel in sand; and he cannot support himself
on moist and slippery ground. Herbage and pasture are wanting in this
country, as is also the ox, whose place is supplied by the camel.
We cannot be deceived as to the native country of these animals, when
we consider their nature and structure which must be conformable
thereto; especially when those are not modified by the influence of
other climates. It has been tried, but without effect, to multiply
camels in Spain; they have also in vain been transported to America,
but they have neither succeeded in the one climate, nor in the other,
and they are seldom to be met with in the East Indies beyond Surat and
Ormus: not that we mean to say absolutely that they cannot subsist
and increase in the East Indies, Spain, America, and even in colder
countries, as in France, Germany, &c. By keeping them during the winter
in warm stables, feeding and treating them with care, not letting them
labour, or suffering them to walk out but when the weather is fine,
they might be kept alive and we might even hope to see them multiply;
but such productions are small and imbecile, and the parents themselves
are weak and languid. They lose, therefore, all their value in these
climates, and, instead of being useful, they are very expensive to
bring up, while in their native country they may be said to compose all
the wealth of their masters.
The Arabs regard the camel as a present from Heaven, a sacred animal,
without whose aid they could neither subsist, trade, nor travel. The
milk of these beasts is their common nourishment: they likewise eat
their flesh, especially that of the young ones, which they reckon
very good. The hair of these animals, which is fine and soft, and is
renewed every year, serves them to make stuffs for their clothing
and their furniture. Blest with their camels, they not only want for
nothing, but they even fear nothing. In a single day they can traverse
a tract of fifty leagues into the desert, and thus escape from their
enemies. All the armies in the world would perish in pursuit of a troop
of Arabs; and hence they are no further submissive than they please.
Let any one figure to himself a country without verdure and without
water; a burning sun, a sky always clear, plains covered with sand, and
mountains still more parched, over which the eye extends and the sight
is lost, without being stopped by a single living object; a dead earth
constantly whirled about by the winds, presenting nothing but bones,
flints scattered here and there, rocks perpendicular, or overthrown; a
desert entirely naked, where the traveller never drew his breath under
a friendly shade, where nothing accompanies him, and where nothing
reminds him of an animated nature; an absolute solitude, a thousand
times more frightful than that of the deepest forests; for trees appear
as beings to the man, who thus desolate, thus naked, and thus lost,
in an unbounded void, looks over all the extended space as his tomb:
the light of the day, more dismal than the shade of the night, serves
but to renew the idea of his own wretchedness and impotencies, and to
present before his eyes the horror of his situation, by extending round
him the immense abyss which separates him from the habitable parts of
the earth; an immensity which he, in vain, attempts to overrun; for
hunger, thirst, and burning heat, haunt every weary moment that remains
between despair and death.
Nevertheless, the Arab has found means, by the aid of the camel, to
surmount these difficulties, and even to appropriate to himself these
frightful gaps of Nature: they serve him for an asylum, they secure his
repose, and maintain his independence.--But why does not man know how
to make use of any thing without abuse? This same free, independent,
tranquil, and even rich Arab, instead of respecting these deserts as
the ramparts of his liberty, sullies them with his guilt; he traverses
them to rob the neighbouring nations of their slaves and gold; he
makes use of them to exercise his robberies, which, unfortunately he
enjoys more than his liberty; for his enterprizes are almost always
successful. Notwithstanding the caution of his neighbours, and the
superiority of their forces, he escapes their pursuit, and carries away
with impunity all that he has plundered them of.
An Arab, who destines himself to this business of land piracy, early
hardens himself to the fatigue of travelling; he accustoms himself to
the want of sleep, to suffer hunger, thirst, and heat. For the same
purpose he instructs his camels, he brings them up, and exercises them
in the same method. A few days after their birth, he bends their legs
under their bellies, forces them to remain on the earth, and in this
situation loads them with a heavy weight, and which he only relieves
them from to put on greater. Instead of suffering them to feed at
pleasure, and to drink when they are thirsty, he regulates their
repasts, and by degrees increases them to greater distances between
each meal, diminishing also, at the same time, the quantity of their
food. When they are tolerably strong, he exercises them in the course;
he excites their emulation by the example of horses, and by degrees
renders them as swift, and more robust. At length, when he is assured
of the strength and swiftness of his camels, and that they can endure
hunger and thirst, he then loads them with whatever is necessary for
his and their subsistence, departs with them, arrives unexpected at
the borders of the desert, stops the first passenger he sees, pillages
the straggling habitations, loads his camels with his booty, and if he
is pursued, if he is obliged to expedite his retreat, it is then that
he displays all his own, and his animal's talents. Mounted on one of
his swiftest camels, he conducts the troop, makes them travel day and
night, almost without stopping either to eat or drink; and in this
manner, he easily passes over the space of three hundred leagues in
eight days; and during all that time of fatigue and travel, he never
unloads his camels, and only allows them an hour of repose, and a ball
of paste each day. They often run in this manner for nine or ten days
without meeting with any water, and when, by chance, there is a pool at
some distance, they smell the water at more than half a league before
they come to it. Thirst makes them redouble their pace, and then they
drink enough for all the time past, and for as long to come; for they
often travel many weeks, and their abstinence endures as long as they
are upon their journey.
In Turkey, Persia, Egypt, Arabia, Barbary, &c. all their merchandize
is carried by camels, which of all conveyances is the most ready
and cheapest. Merchants and other travellers assemble themselves
in caravans to avoid the insults and robberies of the Arabs. These
caravans are often very numerous, and always composed of more camels
than men. Each camel is loaded according to his strength,[A] and of
this they are themselves so conscious that when overloaded they refuse
to proceed, but remain in their resting posture till their burthen be
lighted.
[A] The Orientalists call the camel the _ship of the desert_, alluding
to the heavy loads which it carries.
Large camels generally carry 1000, or even 1200lbs. weight, and the
smaller 6 or 700. In these commercial journeys, they do not travel
quick, and as the route is often seven or eight hundred leagues, they
regulate their motions and journeys; they only walk, and go every
day ten or twelve leagues; they are unloaded every evening, and are
suffered to feed at liberty. In a country where there is plenty of
pasture, they eat enough in one hour to ruminate the whole night, and
to serve them twenty-four; but they seldom meet with such pastures, and
this delicate food is not necessary for them. They even seem to prefer
worm-wood, thistles, nettles, furze, and other thorny vegetables to the
softest herbs; and as long as they can find plants to brouze on, they
easily dispense with drink.
But, this facility, with which they abstain so long from drink, is not
pure habit, but rather an effect of their formation. Independently of
the four stomachs, which are common to ruminating animals, the camel
is possessed of a fifth bag, which serves him as a reservoir to retain
the water. This fifth stomach is peculiar to the camel; it is so large
as to contain a great quantity of water, where it remains without
corrupting, or the other aliments being able to mix with it. When the
animal is pressed with thirst, or has occasion to macerate his dry
food for ruminating, he causes a part of this water to re-ascend into
the paunch, and even into the oesophagus, by a simple contraction
of the muscles. It is, therefore, by virtue of this very singular
conformation, that the camel can remain several days without drink,
and that he can take at one time a prodigious quantity of water, which
continues pure and limpid in this reservoir, because neither the
liquors of the body, nor the juices of digestion are able to mix with
it.
If we compare the deformities, or rather the non-conformities of the
camel with other quadrupeds, we cannot doubt but his nature has been
considerably altered by constraint, slavery, and continual labour.
The camel is the most completely, the most laboriously, and the most
anciently enslaved of all domestic animals; the most anciently, because
he inhabits climates where man was the most early civilised; the most
completely, because in the other species of domestic animals, such
as the horse, the dog, the ox, the sheep, the hog, &c. we find some
individuals in their natural state, which have not yet been subjected
by man; but the whole species of the camel is enslaved, and not any
of them are to be found in their primitive state of independence
and liberty; and lastly, he is the most laborious slave, because he
has never been trained, either for shew, as are many horses, or for
amusement, as are almost all dogs, or for the use of the table, as are
the ox, the hog, the sheep, &c. He is the only beast of burden whom
man has not harnessed, or taught to draw, but whose body is looked
upon as a living carriage, which may be loaded and oppressed, even
during his time of rest; and when in haste sleeps under the pressure
of a heavy burden, his legs bent under him, and the weight of his
body resting upon his stomach. This animal always bears the marks of
slavery and pain. Below the breast, upon the sternum, there is a large
callosity, as tough as horn, and similar ones upon the joints of his
legs; although these callosities are to be met with on every camel,
yet they themselves prove that they are not natural, but produced by
excessive constraint and pain, from being often found filled with pus.
The breast and legs, therefore, are deformed by these callosities: the
back is also disfigured with a double or single hunch, and both these
hunches and callosities are perpetuated from one generation to another.
As it is evident, that the first deformity proceeds from the custom
of forcing them when quite young to lay on their stomachs, with their
legs bent under them, and in that cramped posture, to bear not only the
weight of their bodies, but also the burthens which are put upon them;
it must be presumed, that the hunch or hunches, owe their origin to
the unequal compression of heavy burthens, which may have raised the
flesh, and puffed up the fat and skin; for these hunches are not bony,
but composed of a fleshy substance, partly of the same consistence as
the udder of a cow. Thus the callosities and the hunches should be
equally regarded as deformities produced by the continuance of labour,
and constraint of body; and though at first accidental and individual,
they are now become general and permanent in the whole species. It may
also be presumed, that the bag which contains the water, and which is
only an appendix to the paunch, has been produced by a forced extension
of this viscera. The animal after enduring thirst for a long time by
taking at one time as much, and, perhaps more water than the stomach
could contain, this membrane would become extended and dilated, as
has been observed in the stomach of sheep, which extends and acquires
a capacity in proportion to the quantity of its aliment. The stomach
is very small in sheep that are fed with grain, while it becomes very
large in those that are fed with herbage.
These conjectures would be fully confirmed, or destroyed, if any of
these animals could be found wild to compare with the domestic; but
these animals do not exist any where in a natural state, or if they do,
no one has yet remarked or described them; we must, therefore, suppose,
that all which is good and fair about them they owe to Nature, and
that all that is defective and deformed is occasioned by the labour
and slavery imposed on them by the empire of man. These poor animals
must suffer a great deal, as they make lamentable cries, especially
when overloaded; but, notwithstanding they are continually oppressed,
they have as much spirit as docility. At the first sign they bend
their legs, and kneel upon the ground, to be loaded, thus saving the
trouble of lifting up the burden to any great height. As soon as they
are loaded they raise themselves up again without any assistance, and
the conductor, mounted on one of them, precedes the whole troop who
follow in the same pace as he leads. They want neither whip nor spur,
but when they begin to be fatigued their conductors support their
spirit, or rather charm their weariness, by a song, or the sound of
some instrument. When they want to prolong the day's journey they give
the animals but one hour's rest, after which, renewing their song, they
proceed on their way for several hours more, and the singing continues
until they come to another resting place; then the camels again kneel
down, and are eased of their loads, by the cords being untied, and
the bales rolling down on each side. In this cramped posture, with
their bellies couched upon the earth, they sleep in the midst of their
baggage, which is tied on again the next morning with as much readiness
and facility as it was untied before they went to rest.
The callosities and tumours on their breast and legs, the bruises and
wounds of the skin, the entire shedding their hair, the hunger, thirst,
and leanness of these animals are not their only inconveniences;
they are prepared for all these evils by one still greater, namely,
castration. They leave but one male for eight or ten females, and all
the camels of burden are commonly geldings; they are weaker without
doubt than those which are not mutilated, but they are more tractable,
and ready for employ at all times; while the others are not only
ungovernable but even furious, in the rutting time, which remains forty
days, and returns every spring; when, it is affirmed, they continually
foam, and one or two red vesicles, as large as a hog's bladder, issue
from their mouths. At this time they eat very little, attack and bite
animals, and even their masters, to whom at other times they are very
submissive.
The camel does not copulate like other quadrupeds, for the female
sinks upon her knees and receives the male in the same situation as
she rests, sleeps, or is loaded. This posture, to which they are
easily accustomed, becomes natural to them, since they assume it at
the time of their copulation. The female goes about twelve months with
young, and, like all large quadrupeds, produces but one at a birth:
they have great plenty of milk, which is thick and nourishing, even
for the human species, when mixed with a great quantity of water.
The females seldom do any labour when with young, but are suffered to
bring forth at liberty. The advantages derived from their produce,
and their milk, perhaps surpasses that which would be gained by their
labour; nevertheless, in some places a great part of the females
undergo castration, in order to render them more fit for labour;
and it is pretended, that this operation, instead of diminishing
augments their strength and vigour, and adds to the beauty of their
appearance. In general the fatter camels are, the more capable they are
of enduring great fatigue. Their hunches appear to be formed from the
superabundance of nourishment, for in long journeys, where they are
stinted in their food, and where they suffer both hunger and thirst,
these hunches gradually diminish, and are reduced so flat that their
places are only discovered by the length of the hair, which is always
longer on these parts than on the rest of the back; the leanness of
the body increases in proportion as the hunches diminish. The Moors,
who transport all their merchandize from Barbary and from Numidia into
Ethiopia, depart with their camels well loaded, who are then very
fat and vigorous, but bring the same animals back so lean that they
commonly sell them at a low price to the Arabs of the desart, who
fatten them anew
The ancients have affirmed that these animals are capable of generating
at the age of three years: this appears to me rather doubtful, for at
that age they have not attained half their growth. The genital member
of the male, like that of the bull, is very long and slender; it tends
forward during copulation, like that of every other animal; but in its
usual state, it is bent backwards, and voids the urine between the
legs, so that the male and female pass their urine in the same manner.
The young camel sucks its mother twelve months, and when designed for
labour, to make him strong and robust they leave him at liberty to suck
or graze for a longer time, nor begin to load or put him to work till
he has attained the age of four years. The camel commonly lives forty
or fifty years, which term of life is proportioned to the time of its
growth. It is without any foundation that some authors have advanced
that he lives a hundred years.
By uniting under one point of view all the qualities of this animal,
and all the advantages which are gained by him, he must be acknowledged
to be the most useful of all the creatures under subordination to man.
Gold and silk are not the true riches of the east, the camel is the
treasure of Asia. He is of greater value than the elephant, as he does
as much labour, and consumes not a twentieth part of the food. Besides
the whole species is subjected to man, who propagates and multiplies
it as much as he pleases. But it is not so with the elephants, whom
they cannot multiply, can only subdue them individually, and that with
great trouble and difficulty. The camel is not only of greater value
than the elephant but perhaps not of less than the horse, the ass, and
the ox, when all their advantages are united. He carries as much as
two mules, and not only eats less, but feeds on herbs as coarse as the
ass. The female furnishes milk longer than the cow; the flesh of young
camels is as good and wholesome as veal; their hair is finer, and more
sought after than the best wool. Even their excrements are useful, for
sal ammoniac is made of their urine, and their dung, when dried and
powdered, serves them for litter, as well as the horses, with whom
they often travel in countries where neither straw nor hay is known.
To conclude, they also make excellent fewel of this dung, which burns
freely, gives a flame as clear, and almost as lively, as that of dry
wood, and which is of great use in the deserts, where not a tree is to
be seen, and where, from the deficiency of combustible matters, fire is
almost as scarce as water.