for five days without drinking.
When too heavily laden the camel refuses to rise, but on the march it is
exceedingly patient under its burden, only yielding beneath it to die.
Relieved from its load it does not, like other animals, seek the shade,
even when that is to be found, but prefers to kneel beside its burden in
the broad glare of the sun, seeming to luxuriate in the burning sand.
When overtaken by a dust-storm it falls on its knees, and stretching its
neck along the sand, closes its nostrils and remains thus motionless
till the atmosphere clears; and in this position it affords some shelter
to its driver, who, wrapping his face in his mantle, crouches behind his
beast.

The food of the camel consists chiefly of the leaves of trees, shrubs
and dry hard vegetables, which it is enabled to tear down and masticate
by means of its powerful front teeth. As regards temperament, if, writes
Sir F. Palgrave, "docile means stupid, well and good; in such a case the
camel is the very model of docility. But if the epithet is intended to
designate an animal that takes an interest in its rider so far as a
beast can, that in some way understands his intentions, or shares them
in a subordinate fashion, that obeys from a sort of submissive or
half-fellow-feeling with his master, like the horse or elephant, then I
say that the camel is by no means docile--very much the contrary. He
takes no heed of his rider, pays no attention whether he be on his back
or not, walks straight on when once set agoing, merely because he is too
stupid to turn aside, and then should some tempting thorn or green
branch allure him out of the path, continues to walk on in the new
direction simply because he is too dull to turn back into the right
road. In a word, he is from first to last an undomesticated and savage
animal rendered serviceable by stupidity alone, without much skill on
his master's part, or any co-operation on his own, save that of an
extreme passiveness. Neither attachment nor even habit impresses him;
never tame, though not wide-awake enough to be exactly wild."

For extinct camels see TYLOPODA. (R. L.*)

The Biblical expression (Matt. xix. 24, &c.), "it is easier for a
camel to go through a needle's eye," &c., is sometimes explained by
saying that the "needle's eye" means the small gate which is opened in
the great gate of a city, when the latter is closed for the night; but
recent criticism (e.g. Post in _Hastings' Dict.