But I think I d rather go into battle on horseback, and reserve camel riding for sightseeing. In return for all this service from camels, people give camels water when they need it. Despite an impressive array of adaptations for life in the desert, domestic camels do rely on people to provide them with water. Rather, camels forage more or less freely, getting all of their nourishment from plants, including many salty, dry, or spiny species few other animals will eat. Under desert conditions, as in the Sahara where there is almost no surface water, camels are dependent on their owners for water, which must be drawn from desert wells.
Camels also become attached to a home area, to which they generally return, even from very far away.
For this reason, many dromedary camels live in a semi-wild condition, their owners secure in the knowledge that, left to find their own food, camels will still regularly return to familiar wells to have water drawn for them. Even while working, camels generally forage freely, snatching what bites they can while walking slowly and then foraging farther afield during breaks and at night. Guarded camels those not allowed to roam unattended by herders also largely fend for themselves to find food. Dromedaries were probably first domesticated 4,000 to 5,000 years ago in southern Arabia, where coastal residents seemed to have subsisted largely on sea cows and a smattering of wild camels. Some authorities speculate that it was shared dependence on a limited number of watering sites in the desert that brought wild dromedary camels and people together.