The Virginia enterprise. [volume] (Virginia, St. Louis County, Minn.) 1893-19??, 1896-06-12
Charact ristics Of the Camel, /

Charactcristics OF the Camel,
Our correspondent with the Soudan
expedition sends the following reflections
on the camel: .ss &C.
The camel. be i at once said, is an
oyerrated beast: There Is n great deal
of him. but he Is not for his size nearly
SO strong as the useful, unpretcntious
donkey. Then, too, his anatomy is so
strangely conceived. His legs are at
tached to. his great unwieldy carcass
with seemingly 30 little consideration for
the uses to which (merely viewed as
legs) he might be expected to put them.
And his neck and tail are SO obviously
disprOpOrtionate to the rest of him, and
both so useless, that one cannot avoid
the thought that the camel is somehow
incomplete, or, owing to some mistake,
was never finished off at ALL y,
| Even the qualities he possesses tend to
strengthen one in this bewildering sus-
picion. For instance, he can kick him
self violently in the-let us say the front
of the back-with his foreleg. He does
it constantly. Time and again have
devoted long hours (fruitlessly, must
admit to an attempt to win the conf
dence of my favorite camel-my favor
lite because he is less cruel to me than
the others. I have wooed him with the
soft notes of my Kourbash, I have
tempted him with the tharniest zof Mi
mosa branches. | have fuffed tobacco
smoke into his supercilious nostrils
And. then, Just as L have faneied saw
the light of sympathy dawning in his
l6ng-lashed eye he has risen all of one
movement TO his feet, grinned at me in
frightful manner, disclosing forest of
green ad broken teeth and gazing at me
full, with more vindictive contempt than
| have ever marked in any human eye,
has kicked himself violently in the stom-
aeh and lain down again, as who should
nd both
like good boy"
Then he can gnaw his own tail-his
absurd useless little rag of tail that
isn't even worth biting. But is that an
object worth living for? Or, again: he
has, to be sure, seven stomachs, of which,
vain beast, he is so Unfortunately proud
(as though he had anything to do with
of them to show you, and blows it out
from his great, ugly throat in horrid,
glittering, transparent bulb, for you to
admire. A more nauseating practice
could hardly be conceived, but the low
brute will do it. One accomplishment.
indeed. l can give him credit for. He
can flick fly from the top of his head
with his hind toe. Now, this in the age
we live in might, We're he ,luckier
beast, and the rest of his bulk conducive,
have served him in good stead. But~as
things are l fear he will make nothing of
II. Ills shape is fatally against him. and
he will never become fashionable as a
step dancer.
But with all his faults, defects and dis
abilities the camel has, so far as this
country is concerned, not yet been SUI
perseded by any more practical inyen-
ton, and despite the fact that his temper
is bad, bis appetite vast and sordid, his
capacity for prolonged existence without
water giddy fiction, his carrying capa.
bilities mean and his locomotive powers
exasperatingly meager, yet he is ali we
have and on him must we largely de-
pend throughout this Dongola expedition.
DR.. Conan Doyle, who is one of our bar.
ty, believes, after week or so Of &C,
quaintance with him, that he has dis
covered in his riding camel great deli
cacy of sentiment and much dignity of
demeanor But then, DR.. Conan Doyle
is a man Of so wide a charity that he
actually believes in. and even admires-
well, no, l will not say who it is. Let
everyone guess for himself. But If that
person. why not the camel? Why not,
indeed? Perhaps 1 may have some day
something pleasant to say about NV
camels. Time must decide. Is it a. long
lived beast, l wonder?-London News.