Volume 1
A history of the earth, and animated nature / By Oliver Goldsmith. With an introductory view of the animal kingdom, tr. from the French by Baron Cuvier. And copious notes embracing accounts of new discoveries in natural history: And a life of the author by Washington Irving. And a carefully prepared index to the whole work.
- Oliver Goldsmith
- Date:
- 1847
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: A history of the earth, and animated nature / By Oliver Goldsmith. With an introductory view of the animal kingdom, tr. from the French by Baron Cuvier. And copious notes embracing accounts of new discoveries in natural history: And a life of the author by Washington Irving. And a carefully prepared index to the whole work. Source: Wellcome Collection.
589/660 page 517
![Book IX.] THE CAMEL AND the lively Parisians. Every fashion was a la giraffe; and even the ladies wore dresses, and the men carried handkerchiefs, bearing the portrait of the animal. Both of these individuals were females; and they were each taken very young by some Arabs, who fed them with milk. The governor of Sennaar, a large town of Nubia, obtained them from the Arabs, and forwarded them to the pasha of Egypt. This ruler determined on presenting them to the kings of England and France; and as there was some dif- ference in size, the consuls of each nation drew lots for them. The shortest and weakest fell to the lot of England. The giraffe destined for our sovereign was conveyed to Malta, under the charge of two Arabs, and was from thence forwarded to London in the Penelope merchant vessel, and arrived on the 11th of August. The animal was conveyed to Windsor, two days after, in a spacious caravan. The following were its dimensions, as measured shortly after its arrival at Windsor:— Ft. In. From the top of the head to the bottom of the hoof 10 8 Length of the head, 19 From tlie top of the head to the neck root, . . .40 neck root to the elbow, .... 2 3 elbow to the upper part of the knee, . 1 8 upper part of the knee to the fetlock .joint, 1 11 fetlock joint to the bottom of the hoof, . 0 10 Length of the back, 3 1 From the croup to the bottom of the hoof, . . 5 8 hough to the bottom of the hoof, . .29 Length of the hoofs 0 7| She grew somewhat after her arrival, but her health was never good. Her .joints appeared to shoot over, and she was very weak and crippled. In- deed, so great was the weakness of her fore-legs, that a pulley was constructed, being suspended from the ceiling of her hovel, and fastened round her body, for the purpose of raising her on her legs without any exertion on her part. When she first arrived, she was exceedingly playful, and perfectly harmless; but she became afterwards much less active, although as gentle as before. She appeared to know her keeper, and every object by which she was surrounded at- tracted her attention. CHAP. V. THE CAMEL AND THE DROMEDARY. These names do not make two distinct kinds, but are only given to a variety of the same ani- mal,' which has, however, subsisted time im- memorial. The principal, and perhaps the only sensible difference, by which those two races are distinguished, consists in this, that the camel has two bunches upon his hack, whereas the dromedary has but one ; the latter, also, is nei- ther so large nor so strong as the camel. These two races, however, produce with each other, and the mixed breed formed between them is [considered the best, the most patient, and the imost indefatigable of all the kind. ' Of the two varieties, the dromedary is by far the most m^pierous, the camel being scarcely jfound, except in Turkey, and the countries of I ' 1 These quadrupeds have six front teeth in the ilower jaw, which are rather thin and broad: the canine teeth are a tittle remote from the rest; in the upper jaw there are three, in the lower two: the upper lip divided; and there are no horns Ei>. THE DROMEDARY. 517 the Levant; while the other is found spread over all the deserts of Arabia, the southern parts of Africa, Persia, Tartary, and a great part of the Eastern Indies. Thus, the one inhabits an immense tract of country, the other, in compari- son, is confined to a province ; the one inhabits the sultry countries of the torrid zone, the other delights in a warm, but not a burning climate ; neither, however, can subsist, or propagate, in the variable cUmates towards the north; they seem formed for those countries where shrubs are plenty, and water scarce ; where they can travel along the sandy desert without being impeded by rivers, and find food at expected distances ; such a country is Arabia, and this, of all others, seems the most adapted to the support and production of this animal. The camel is the most temperate of all ani- mals, and it can continue to travel several days without drinking. In those vast deserts, where the earth is everywhere dry and sandy, where there are neither birds nor beasts, neither insects nor vegetables, where nothing is to be seen but hiUs of sand and heaps of stone, there the camel travels, posting forward, without requiring either drink or pasture, and is often found six or seven days without any sustenance whatsoever. Its feet are formed for travelling upon sand, and utterly unfit for moist or marshy places ; the in- habitants, therefore, find a most useful assistant in this animal, where no other could subsist, and by its means cross those deserts with safety, which would be unpassable by any other method of conveyance. An animal, thus formed for a sandy and desert region, cannot be propagated in one of a different nature. Many vain efforts have been tried to propagate the camel in Spain; they have been transported into America, but have multiplied in neither. It is true, indeed, that they may be brought into these countries, and may, perhaps, be found to produce there, but the care of keep- ing them is so great, and the accidents to which they are exposed, from the changeableness of the climate, are so many, that they cannot answer the care of keeping. In a few years also they are seen to degenerate ; their strength and their patience forsake them; and instead of making the riches, they become the burden of their keepers. But it is very different in Arabia, and those countries where the camel is turned to useful purposes. It is there considered as a sacred ani- mal, without whose help the natives could nei- ther subsist, traffic, nor travel; its milk makes a part of their nourishment; they feed upon its flesh, particularly when young ; they clothe them- selves with its hair, which it is seen to moult regularly once a-year; and if they fear an in- vading enemy their camels serve them in flight, and in a single day they are known to travel above a hundred miles. Thus, by means of the camel, an Arabian finds safety in his deserts ; all](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22014457_0001_0589.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
