Aspects of nature, in different lands and different climates (Vol. 1 of 2): with scientific elucidations — John Shaqi
Aspects of nature, in different lands and different climates (Vol. 1 of 2): with scientific elucidationsHumboldt, Alexander von
Science
Aspects of nature, in different lands and different climates (Vol. 1 of 2): with scientific elucidations
Humboldt, Alexander von
Physical geography; Plant morphology; Science; South America -- Description and travel
to the present day. On the other hand, the negro races never, of their
own accord, made any use of the camel; it was only in company with
the conquering expeditions and proselyting missions of the Bedouins,
carrying their prophet’s doctrines over the whole of Northern Africa,
that the useful animal of the Nedjid, of the Nabatheans, and of all
the countries inhabited by Aramean races, spread to the westward and
was introduced among the black population. The Goths took camels as
early as the fourth century to the Lower Istros (the Danube), and
the Ghaznevides conveyed them in much larger numbers as far as India
and the banks of the Ganges.” We must distinguish two epochs in the
diffusion of the camel throughout the northern part of the African
continent; one under the Ptolemies, operating through Cyrene on the
whole of the north-west of Africa; and the Mohammedan epoch of the
conquering Arabs.
It has long been a question, whether those domestic animals which
have been the earliest companions of mankind--oxen, sheep, dogs, and
camels--are still to be met with in a state of original wildness. The
Hiongnu, in Eastern Asia, belong to the nations who earliest tamed and
trained wild camels as domestic animals. The compiler of the great
Chinese work, Si-yu-wen-kien-lo, (Historia Regionum occidentalium,
quæ Si-yu vocantur, visu et auditu cognitarum,) affirms that in the
middle of the 18th century wild camels, as well as wild horses and wild
asses, still wandered in East Turkestan. Hadji Chalfa, in his Turkish
Geography, written in the 17th century, speaks of the frequent chase
of the wild camel in the high plains of Kashgar, Turfan, and Khotan.
Schott translates, from a Chinese author, Ma-dschi, that wild camels
are to be found in the countries to the north of China and west of the
Hoang-ho, in Ho-si or Tangut. Cuvier alone (Règne Animal, T. i. p.
257), doubts the present existence of wild camels in the interior of
Asia. He believes they have merely “become wild;” because Calmucks, and
others having Buddhistic religious affinities with them, set camels
and other animals at liberty, in order “to acquire to themselves merit
for the other world.” According to Greek witnesses of the times of
Artemidorus and Agatharchides of Cnidus, the Ailanitic Gulf of the
Nabatheans was the home of the wild Arabian camel. (Ritter’s Asien,
Bd. viii. s. 670, 672, and 746.) The discovery of fossil camel bones
of the ancient world by Captain Cautley and Doctor Falconer, in
1834, in the sub-Himalaya range of the Sewalik hills, is peculiarly
deserving of notice. These bones were found with other ancient bones
of mastodons, of true elephants, of giraffes, and of a gigantic land
tortoise (Colossochelys), twelve feet in length and six feet in height.
(Humboldt, Cosmos, Engl. ed. vol. i. p. 268.) This camel of the
Ancient World has received the name of Camelus sivalensis, but does
not show any considerable difference from the still living Egyptian
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