If the camel can rise with the load on its back, this is proof positive
that he can carry it throughout the journey, although it sometimes
happens, if the journey be only a very short one, the patient beast is
loaded so heavily that it must be helped on to its feet by means of bars
and levers. In some places camels cry out against this excessive loading
in a most piteous and distressing manner--the cry resembling that of a
very young child in pain, and being a most dismal sound to hear; but in
other parts of the world they will bear their burden, however heavy,
without complaining.

[Illustration: THE CAMEL AND HIS RIDER.]

An ordinary camel's load is from seven to eight hundred pounds. With
this weight on their backs, a train of camels will cross thirty miles of
desert during a day. Those used to carry dispatches, having only the
light weight of the dispatch-bearer, of course are expected to travel
much faster, however, and will easily accomplish two hundred and forty
miles in the same length of time.

Ungainly, awkward, repulsive-looking as these creatures are, with their
great projecting harelips and their hairy humps, they have the
compensation of being most priceless treasures to all those who "dwell
in tents" in the vast sandy plains of Egypt, Arabia, and Tartary.

Their stomachs are so formed by nature that they are capable of being
converted into a set of water tanks, a number of small cells filled with
the purest water being fastened to the sides of each, and when all food
fails, it makes little difference to a camel or dromedary--at least for
a time.

Their humps are composed of a fatty substance. Day by day the hump
diminishes, and the fat is absorbed into the animal's system, furnishing
nourishment until food is forth-coming.

Thus, with these stores of water and fuel on board, the "ship" can go on
for a fortnight, or even a month, absolutely without eating or drinking,
while things that other creatures--unless, perhaps, it be some bird of
the ostrich tribe--would never dream of touching, will furnish forth a
sumptuous meal for a camel. Off a handful of thorns and briers he can
make an excellent breakfast, and I believe he will not disdain anything
apparently so untempting as a bit of dry wood.

Provided that at certain periods of the year a short holiday is allowed
the camel for pasturing, quite at its leisure, to recruit its strength
and fill that store-house on its back with fuel, it will serve i