With Intense Greediness The Camel, Although A Hermit In
Simplicity Of Fare In Hard Times, Feeds Voraciously When In Abundant
Pasture, Always Seeking The Greenest Shrubs.
The poison-bush becomes a
fatal bait.
The camel is by no means well understood in Europe. Far from being the
docile and patient animal generally described, it is quite the reverse,
and the males are frequently dangerous. They are exceedingly perverse;
and are, as before described, excessively stupid. For the great deserts
they are wonderfully adapted, and without them it would be impossible to
cross certain tracts of country for want of water.
Exaggerated accounts have been written respecting the length of time
that a camel can travel without drinking. The period that the animal can
subsist without suffering from thirst depends entirely upon the season
and the quality of food. Precisely as in Europe sheep require but little
water when fed upon turnips, so does the camel exist almost without
drinking during the rainy season when pastured upon succulent and dewy
herbage. During the hottest season, when green herbage ceases to exist
in the countries inhabited by camels, they are led to water every
alternate day, thus they are supposed to drink once in forty-eight
hours; but when upon the march across deserts, where no water exists,
they are expected to carry a load of from five to six hundred pounds,
and to march twenty-five miles per day, for three days, without
drinking, but to be watered on the fourth day.
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