2. The Arabian camel or dromedary (camehis dromeriarivis or Arabicus of naturalists) is properly the species having naturally but one hunch.' It is probably of Western-Asiatic origin. It has indeed been supposed to have had its first habitation in Africa, but the Egyptian monuments do not once represent it, nor do the inscriptions and papyri speak of it. The mentions in the Pentateuch do not seem to prove that camels were kept in any part of Egypt but its north-eastern tract, at the time to which they refer the home of strangers, as we shall shew later. It is evident, however, that the camel was abundant in Syria and Palestine at a very early period as a beast of burden.
' Of the Arabian species two very distinct races are noticed ; those of stronger frame but slower pace, used to carry burdens varying from 500 to Too weight, and travelling little more than twenty four miles in a day ; and those of lighter form, bred for the saddle with single riders, whereof the fleetest serve to convey Intelligence, etc., and travel at the rate of upwards of roo* miles in twenty-four hours. The latter are designated by several appellations, all more or less implying swiftness. The best come from Oman, or from the I3isharees in Upper Egypt. Caravans of loaded camels have always scouts and Hankers mounted on these light animals. The Romans of the third and fourth centuries of our era, as appears from the Notztia,' maintained in Egypt and Palestine several aloe or squadrons mounted on dromedaries. Bonaparte formed a similar corps, and in China and India the native princes and the East India Company have had them also.
All camels, from their very hirth, are taught to bend their limbs and lie down to receive a load or a rider. They are often placed circularly in a recumbent posture, and together with their loads form a sufficient rampart of defence against robbers on horseback. The milk of she-camels is still con sidered a very nutritive cooling drink, and when turned it becomes intoxicating. Their dung sup plies fuel in the desert and in sandy regions where wood is scarce ; and occasionally it is a kind of resource for horses when other food is wanting in the wilderness. Their flesh is eaten by the Arabs, who considerthehunch a delicacy, but was forbidden to the Hebrews (Lev. xi. 4; Dent. xiv. 7). On swift dromedaries the trotting motion is so hard that to endure it the rider requires a severe apprentice ship ; but riding upon slow camels is not disagree able, on account of the measured step of their walk ; ladies and women in general are conveyed upon them in a kind of wicker-work sedan, known as the takht-ravan of India and l'ersia.'
In the history of the Hebrews the camel is used only by nomad tribes. This is because the desert is the home of the Arabian species, and it cannot thrive in even so fine a climate as that of the valley of the Nile in Egypt. The Hebrews in the patriarchal age had camels as late as Jacob's journey from Padan-aram, until which time they mainly led a very wandering life. With Jacob's sojourn in Palestine, and still more, his settlement in Egypt, they be came a fixed population, and thenceforward their beast of burden was the ass rather than the camel. The camel is first mentioned in a passage which seems to tell of Abraham's wealth (Gen. xii. 16, as xxiv. 35), to which Pharaoh doubtless added, rather than to recount the king's gifts. If the mean ing, however, is that Pharaoh gave camels, it must be remembered that this king was probably one of the Shepherds who partly lived at Avaris, the Zoan of Scripture, so that the passage would not prove that the Egyptians then kept camels, nor that they were kept beyond a tract, at this time, and long after, inhabited by strangers. The narrative of the journey of Abraham's servant to fetch a wife for Isaac portrays the habits of a nomad people, perhaps most of all when Rebekah, like an Arab damsel, lights off her camel to meet Isaac (xxiv.) Jacob, like Abraham, had camels (xxx. 43) : when he left Padan-aram he set his sons and his wives upon camels' (xxxi. 17) ; in the present he made to Esau there were thirty milch camels with their colts' (xxxii. 15). In Palestine, after his return, he seems no longer to have kept them. When his sons went down to Egypt to buy corn, they took asses. Joseph sent wagons for his father and the women and children of his house (xlv. 19, 27 ; xlvi. 5). After the conquest of Canaan, this beast seems to have been but little used by the Israelites, and it was probably kept only by the tribes border ing on the desert. It is noticeable that an Ish maelite was overseer of David's camels (1 Chron. xxvii. 30). On the return from Babylon the people had camels, perhaps purchased for the journey to Palestine, but a far greater number of asses (Ezr. 67 ; Neh. vii. 69). There is one distinct notice of the camel being kept in Egypt. It should be observed, that when we read of Joseph's buying the cattle of Egypt, though horses, flocks, herds, and asses, are spoken of (Gen. xlvii. 17), camels do not occur : they are mentioned as held by the Pharaoh of the exodus (Exod. ix. 3), hut this may only have been in the most eastern part of Lower Egypt, for the wonders were wrought in the field of Zoan, at which city this king then doubtless dwelt.