Camel

the most important domestic animal of southwestern Asia. Naturalists consider the camel the most ancient cud-chewing animal in existence--an older type than the giraffe--and place it at the end of the cud-chewing group nearest the thick-skinned animals. The camel family contains two groups. The Bactrian or two-humped camel and the Arabian or one-humped camel belong to the Old World; the llama and the alpaca, the quanaco and the vicuna of the Andes, belong to the New World. The camel's colt stands about three feet high and attains a shoulder height of about seven feet at maturity. Its duration of life is forty years or over. The camel does not refuse green pasturage, but it exceeds a goat in ability to live on the dry, prickly shrubs of the desert.

Camels are wonderfully well fitted for life in hot, sandy countries. Unlike other cud-chewing animals, the camel's foot is only partially cloven. Instead of a split foot shod with two hoofs, like those of a deer or an ox, the two toes of a camel rest on a broad, leathery, elastic pad that serves as a kind of "sand shoe," and enables the camel to walk with ease over the soft sands of Arabia and the Sahara, where a hoofed animal sinks ankle deep at every step. The extreme tips of its toes are separated, and are shod with reduced hoofs much like claws. The camel's backbone is entirely regular. Its hump is not a deformity of the spine but a storehouse. When forage is plentiful, the camel stores up fat and muscle in its hump to be drawn on for strength during long journeys or time of food scarcity. During hard trips these humps become empty, and must be restored by three or four months of rest and abundance before severe service is again undertaken. Long, thick, silky eye-lashes serve as a protection against the white glare of the sand and keep out whirling dust. The camel's nostrils are long, narrow slits. During a sand storm a camel lies down, stretches out his long neck on the sand, closes his eyes and nostrils, and waits for the suffocating dust cloud to blow past. Another wonderful provision of nature is a system of folds or water pouches in the walls of the first and second stomach. The largest of these pockets is not over three inches in diameter, but they are numerous and, when filled from the stomach by a drink at some oasis, they will serve their owner at need for a journey of four or five days to the next water supply. The strength of a camel's back is proverbial. Their ordinary capacity for carrying burdens is twice that of a packhorse, and the Bactrian camel is credited with carrying 1,000 or even 1,500 pounds for short distances. Of the two camels, the Arabian is lighter and better adapted to the deep sand and extreme heat of Syria and Africa; the Bactrian is a coarser, stronger animal, better fitted for the mountain passes, stony pathways, and cold winters of central Asia.

Camels are uncouth, awkward, and ill-tempered. They lack the docility of the ox, and do not possess the intelligence and the affectionate disposition of the horse; but without them large tracts of the Old World would be uninhabitable. Their milk and the flesh of the young serve the Arab for food; he uses their dung for fuel; he manufactures rugs, ropes, garments, and tents from their hair; and he uses their hide for water bags and furniture. In a land where boats are unknown and roads are impossible, the Arab carries his family and his wares on the backs of camels. Thus this faithful animal furnishes food, fuel, shelter, and transportation for millions of people.

Prior to the Civil War a number of camels were imported for use in transporting army supplies in the "Great American Desert." The experiment was reported successful. Some descendants of these camels, escaping the perils of Apaches and mountain lions, are, it is said, still to be found in Arizona, but the assertion rests on doubtful authority. Camels have been introduced into the arid regions of southern and western Australia, where they are used for beasts of burden. They carry bales of wool to market.

The distribution of camels, Arabia and Morocco not included, is about as follows:

Total . . . . . 1,884,583

See Alpaca; Llama; Dromedary; Caravan

Camel's Hair, the woolly hair shorn from the neck and back of the camel. There are two distinct grades. The under hair is fine. It is about one inch long, and is soft and silky. The outer hair, which completely covers the under hair on the neck and hump, is coarse, and is from three to four inches long. In Arabia and other eastern countries, camel's hair is woven into a variety of stuffs, and forms the chief material for clothing and housing the inhabitants. The natural color is a light brown or tan, which is one of the distinguishing characteristics of genuine camel's hair goods. The fiber imported into America and Europe is used principally for the manufacture of fine dress goods and winter underwear. The long and short hairs are sometimes separated, but more frequently they are spun together. When the cloth is woven, some of these longer hairs become untwisted and appear on the surface, giving a shaggy appearance. Genuine camel's hair fabrics are rarely seen in the American market. Two varieties of so-called camel's hair cloth are common in our markets. One is a thick, shaggy fabric, retailing at about two dollars the yard. It is manufactured usually from fine sheep's wool and may or may not have long hairs interspersed on the surface. The other is a thin, fine, wool textile named from its resemblance to the imported cashmere shawls, improperly called camel's hair shawls. It is in reality an attempt to imitate the material of these shawls. See Cashmere Shawl