As to the character of the camel and its good or evil nature authorities differ. Lady Ann Blunt considers the camel the most abused and yet the most patient animal in existence. Palgrave, on the other hand, thus describes the stupidity and ugly temper of the beast: “I have, while in England, heard and read more than once of the docile camel. If docile means stupid, well and good; in such a case the camel is the very model of docility. But if the epithet is intended to designate an animal that takes an interest in its rider so far as a beast can, that obeys from a sort of submissive or half fellow-feeling with its master, like the horse and elephant, then I say that the camel is by no means docile, very much the contrary. He will never attempt to throw you off his back, such a trick being far beyond his limited comprehension; but if you fall off, he will never dream of stopping for you; and if turned loose it is a thousand to one he will never find his way back to his accustomed home or pasture. One only symptom will he give that he is aware of his rider, and that is when the latter is about to mount him, for on such an occasion, instead of addressing him in the style of Balaam’s more intelligent beast, ‘Am not I thy camel upon which thou hast ridden ever since I was thine unto this day?’ he will bend back his long snaky neck toward his master, open his enormous jaws to bite, if he dared, and roar out a tremendous sort of groan, as if to complain of some entirely new and unparalleled injustice about to be done him. In a word he is from first to last an undomesticated and savage animal rendered serviceable by stupidity alone. Neither attachment nor even habit can impress him; never tame, though not wide-awake enough to be exactly wild.” We can bear witness that the camels we have ridden in Hassa and Yemen were altogether more kindly than the ugly creature of Palgrave.