The Penn's Grove record., 1896-02-07

eiaily in Arabia, embraces almost a. yreaI
= variety As the domestcated horse. The
word dromsdary. In came-land, r. applied
2 Designate an animal ussA for riding
purposes only. and 10 from . Greek word
meaning q unner or racer. OF the two
varieties the Arabian is admirably adapt.
ed for carrying burdens. The Bactrian
camel ID less common and is found chiefly
In Tartary and Southern Siberia. The
Arabian variety 10 sometimes seven feet
high and ten feet long, and often welgha
. ton. Oriental poets frequently allude
to the camel and appear to and grace and
beauty In the ungainly animal. A use and
study of the creature In Syria and Egyp1
never revealed to us any beauty In ii
form or features. When well fed and
groomed he exhibits a tawny silken coat,
quite In contrast with the NANCY hides oil
the stunted varieties carried about with
American aravans Because obliged to
do so, he oteys his bosses, but with No
more intelligence than 4 q Of ig.
norant New York voters do the bidding
d Plat and Croker. In Persia q spe'
ries of camel Is trained to fight and wres'
tie; these animals bite each other, and
strike quickly and viciously with their
fore feet. In ancient times camels were
used In armies as by Semiramia, Xerxes
and Alexander the Great; and even in re
rent years they have been so employed in
Egypt and In Arabia and other parts Of
Asia. The fesh of the camel has the
flavor Of good beef, and, dried and saltsd,
It serves to provision caravans. The
animal h Of as much use to the poor Arab
as the reindeer Is to the Laplander. Its
milk 10 as pleasant to drink Al that OF
the cow and cannot be distinguished from
It In coffee. The long hair on the hump,
Jaws and neck 10 mixed with wool and
woven Into cloth. carpets, rugs and tent
cloths. Tho skin, too, makes excellent
leather. The camel may be said to cloths,
feed and shelter the Arab and his family.
Personal Experience.
At an earlier period In the writer's life
when he had more money than sense, he
saw at t. spend some months in the desert
regions of Egypt, Syria and Northern
Arabia, and he will never cease to wonder
why any san man will voluntarily sub
ject himself to the diccomforts and annoy.
ances Of caravan journeys. with their
files, deas and filth, both animal and hui
man. The dark blue skies Of the long,
cloudless days, and the marvellous moon
light and starlight of the nights are almost
everything he recalls with pleasure con-
corning Syrian journeyings. Over the hot
and desolate sands, especially at any dis
lance in the interior, the camel IL the only
means of transportation. On the borders
of the deserts the ass. the quadrupedal
variety, not the Arab, IL In common use.
There can be little doubt that the pa
tience with which Job 10 credited was
wholly derived from initiating that quality
In his six thousand camels. Many a time
have we seen a camel patiently carry his
neayy load till he was just ready to die
with exhaustion, and then fall. Too often
he fell to die, when a little delay was
caused to transfer his load and to take
off his skin. A halt Of this kind under
the cloudless azure Of a Syrian desert Ia
evidently seen at a very great distance
by vultures, for soon dark specks are Wis
ible everywhere on the sky and In a few
hours the bones of the dead camel ara
Invested by them Of every trace of flesh.
Longfeilow thus describes such q feast
By these birds OF prey:
Never stoops the soaring vulturs
On his quarry in the DESERT
Tn the sick or dying camel,
But another vulture watching
From his high aerial lookout,
Sees the downward plunge, and followsi
And a third pursues the second,
Coming from the invisible ether,
First a speck, and then a ~vulture,
Till the air is dark with pinions.
We have never seen a camel carry more
than half q ton, and that not for a grea,
distance, but he viii carry from 800 to
600 pounds fifty miles in a day, and fol
many successive days. A friend tells us
that he once saw q camel rise from the
ground with q load weighing 1900 pounds.
Good riding camels viii 60 one hundred
miles a day for ten or twelve days in
succsssicu and not seem to mind 1t. Cam
els have made forced Journeys Of
BID miles In twenty-four hours. Cam
els, like horses, will bring from $75 to
$1,000 apiece. Their food upon q jour.
ney 10 very simple. They crop almost any
dry herbage, and especially delight in q
diet Of thistles. On long Journeys they
are often fed q dough or coarse bread
made Of meal and beans, and seem to be
satisfied with three or four pounds Of II
for a meal. The camel will go from three
to ave days without drinking, his stomach
storing mp water and supplying 1t as hir
digestion needs It.
An American Experiment
In 1853 Congress appropriated $4,000
for the purchase of camels to be used in
carrying army freight in the arid regions
q Tszas and the Southwest. Animals
were purchased in Asia Minor and Egypt
and brought to ~Indianola, Texas. An In
curry at the War Department as to the
result Of this experiment brings the fol
lowing answer,
4It was demonstrated, s~fter-several
years trial by the quartermaster's depart
ment, that the camels Dy.chased under
authority Of law wera - adapted for
military transportation. and the entire
herd was sold at auction on March y
1886" DUANE DOTY.
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