In some parts of the land it even exceeded in value the sheep, and was infinitely more useful than the goat. At the very beginning of Jewish history we read of this animal, and it is mentioned in the New Testament nearly two thousand years after we meet with it in the Book of Genesis. The earliest mention of the Camel occurs in Gen. xii. 16, where is related the journey of Abram: "He had sheep, and oxen, and he-asses, and men-servants, and maid-servants, and she-asses, and camels." Belonging, as he did, to the nomad race which lives almost wholly on the produce of their herds, Abram needed Camels, not only for their milk, and, for all we know, for their flesh, but for their extreme use as beasts of burden, without which he could never have travelled over that wild and pathless land. The whole of Abram's outer life was exactly that of a Bedouin sheikh of the present day, in whom we find reproduced the habits, the tone of thought, and the very verbiage of the ancient Scriptures. Many years afterwards, when the son of his old age was desirous of marrying a wife of his own kindred, we find that he sent his trusted servants with ten of his Camels to Mesopotamia, and it was by the offering of water to these Camels, that Rebekah was selected as Isaac's wife (see Gen. xxiv. 10, 19). In after days, when Jacob was about to leave Laban, these animals are mentioned as an important part of his wealth: "And the man increased exceedingly, and had much cattle, and maid-servants, and men-servants, and camels, and asses" (Gen. xxx. 43). Then, in Exod. ix. 3, one of the severest plagues with which Egypt was afflicted was the disease which fell upon the Camels in common with the other cattle. It is thought worthy of mention in the sacred narrative that Job had three thousand, and afterwards six thousand Camels (Job i. 3, and xlii. 12); that the Midianites and Amalekites possessed "camels without number, as the sand by the seaside for multitude" (Judg. vii. 12); and that the Reubenites, when making war against the Hagarites, took from them fifty thousand camels--exactly the very object of such wars in the same land at the present time. They were valuable enough to be sent as presents from one potentate to another. For example, when Jacob went to meet Esau, he gave as his present two hundred and twenty sheep, the same number of goats, fifty oxen, thirty asses, and sixty camels, _i.e._ thirty mothers, each with her calf. They were important enough to be guarded by men of position. In 1 Chron. xxvii. 30, we find that the charge of David's Camels was confided to one of his officers, Obil the Ishmaelite, who, from his origin, might be supposed to be skilful in the management of these animals. Bochart however, conjectures that the word Obil ought to be read as Abal, _i.e._ the camel-keeper, and that the passage would therefore read as follows: "Over the camels was an Ishmaelitish camel-keeper."