Camel, camelus , a quadruped, ruminant animal of which there are several species. They are distinguished by the number of humps they have on their back. According to Aristotle and Pliny, the one with two humps keeps the name of camel . It is found more ordinarily in the eastern part of Asia; that is why it is called camelus bactrianus ; [1] it is the larger and stronger one. The one with only one hump is smaller and lighter; it is because of its speed that it is called dromedary . [2] It is more commonly found in the western part of Asia, specifically in Syria and Arabia. Solin on the contrary gives the name camel to those of these animals that have only one hump. Three species of camels are recognized in Africa: those of the first are the largest and strongest; they are called hegins : they carry as much as a thousand pounds of freight. Those of the second species are called bechets : they come from Asia; they are smaller than the first; they have two humps, and are equally suitable for riding or for carrying loads. The third bear the name raguahil : they are small and thin, but are such good runners that they can cover more than a hundred miles in a single day; they are also called maihari and dromedaries . Two of these animals that have only one hump have been described in the Mémoires de l’académie royale des Sciences under the name chameau . They were of different sizes: the smaller was five and a half feet tall from the upper curve of the backbone, which is the hump, to the ground; four and a half feet from the stomach to the tail, the bony part of which was fourteen inches long; the length of the entire tail including the hair was two and a half feet; the neck was the same length, and the head twenty-one inches from the occiput to the muzzle. The coat was soft to the touch, of tawny color, a little ashen; it was scarcely longer than the coat of an ox under the stomach and over most of the body; it was much longer on the head, below the throat, and on the upper chest, where it was five or six inches; the longest was on the middle of the back, where it was almost one foot; and although it is very soft and pliable, it stood up in such a way that it made up most of the hump on the back.

The other camel , which was the larger, and which one sees in Plate II, fig. 1 of Natural History, had curly, corky hair, longer over the whole body than the first, but shorter on the hump, which was taller in proportion to that of the small camel ; the large one had long hair neither on its head nor at the base of the neck. It has been observed at the menagerie of Versailles that camels ’ hair sheds every year, except for the hair on the hump. It is carefully collected because of the demand for it. Other hair is mixed with it, and then it is used in the making of hats, particularly the ones called caudebecs . See the article Hat. [3] The hair on the tail was gray, very tough, and similar to the hair on a horse’s tail.

These camels had small heads in proportion to their body, the muzzle split like a hare’s, and very short ears. The large one had three canine teeth of different sizes on each side of his upper jaw, and two also on each side of the lower jaw; he had no upper incisors. The teeth of the small camel were like those of other ruminants; on the end of each foot were two small nails, and the underside was flat, broad, very fleshy, and covered with a soft, thick, and not very callous skin. The foot was cloven above into four or five toes near the extremity, and below this cleavage, which was shallow, it was solid. There were two callosities on each foreleg: the highest was on the back of the elbow joint, and the second forward at the joint that represents the fold of the fist. The back legs also had a callosity at the knee joint, which was hard and almost as solid as the horn on the foot of other animals. Finally, there was at the base of the chest a seventh callosity, much larger than the others, and attached to the sternum , which was protuberant in this place; it was eight inches long, six wide, and two thick. All these callosities come from the fact that this animal does not lie down on its side like other animals, but crouches down; all the parts that touch the ground in this posture become callous. The foreskin was large and loose; it folded back after covering the extremity of the penis, which is doubtless what makes the camel eject its urine backwards. Mémoires de l’académie royale des Sciences, vol. III, part I.

Camels eat very little. They graze on rushes, nettles, thistles, etc., and the leaves of trees; but when they work hard and long they are given barley or corn to eat, or barley and wheat flour. Ordinarily a paste is made with barley flour, and each camel is given a piece of it the size of two fists. In Persia, the quantity of this paste is about three pounds per day for each of these animals; sometimes cottonseed is mixed with it. They are also given dates and dried fish. If camels were reduced to eating the grass they come across in their travels, they would lose a good deal of weight; and whatever precautions are taken, there are even some that are very thin on their return, their humps and callosities reduced in volume. When they are good and fat on departure, they can go without barley for forty or fifty days. They say there are camels which in times of famine go eight or ten days without eating, but it is certain that they can go three, four, or five days without drinking. Usually they are given water only once in three days when they are living on fresh grasses. They say that there exist some that drink only once in fifteen days.

Warm countries are best for camels . Cold is deadly to them, even the cold of our climates; thus this animal will always remain in Asia and Africa, where it is most useful. It can be ridden, it carries great burdens, and it supplies good milk. In Persia they ride two-humped camels , and sit between the two humps which serve as saddle. They say there are small ones in Africa that make as much as eighty leagues per day, and keep that up for eight or ten days running; their gait is the trot. Large camels are made to bear loads, and the weight they carry runs from six or seven hundred pounds up to a thousand and twelve hundred. There are some in Persia that carry as much as 1500 pounds, but they do not make more than two or three leagues per day under such a great weight. In Arabia they only carry seven hundred pounds, but they do two and a half miles per hour, and their range is ten and sometimes fifteen days. The camels’ load is placed on the hump, or suspended in baskets large enough to carry a person with crossed legs, in the Oriental fashion; it is in these baskets that women are carried. Camels are also harnessed to pull wagons. These animals are very docile; they obey their master’s voice when he wants to have them crouch to load or unload them, and they stand again at the merest sign; however, sometimes they stand on their own when they feel they are being overladen, or they nudge the men loading them with their heads. But most of them just utter a cry without moving. These animals give signs of ferocity only when they are in rut: then they become wild: they no longer recognize the camel-driver , they bite anything they encounter, they fight with their feet and teeth with other animals, even with lions; they have to be muzzled. The rut comes in the spring and lasts forty days, during which they lose much weight, also eating less than usual. The female crouches down to receive the male; she enters heat in the spring; she bears only one calf at a time, which she delivers in the following spring, and does not again go into rut until a year or two later. Males are cut to make them stronger, and only one is left intact for ten females. It is claimed that camels would not crouch on their own accord to be loaded if they were not made to acquire that habit from their youth. They are not loaded until the age of three or four years. They are not groomed with a currycomb, but simply struck with a small stick to rid their bodies of the dust they gather. In Turkey, their feces, dried in the sun, serve as their bedding, and it is burned for cooking when they are out in the deserts. They do not put bits on their riding camels : they put a ring through the skin above the nostrils, which remains there, and attach reins to it. They do not strike these animals to make them go: it suffices to sing or whistle; when they are in great number, cymbals are sounded. Bells are also attached to their knees, and a cowbell around the neck to stimulate them and provide warning in parades. This animal is courageous; it is easily made to walk, except when it encounters muddy or slippery soil on which it cannot stand because of the ball under its feet. When such bad terrains are encountered, they are obliged to extend rugs to allow the camels to cross. Just how long camels live is not known: it has been said that their life was fifty years, and sometimes a hundred; it is even claimed that it could go as long as one hundred sixty. See Quadruped; see also the article Chamois tanner.

1. From Bactria, a region in central Asia.

2. From a Greek word meaning “running.”

3. Chapeau (Art méchan.) , vol. III, by Diderot.