The training of the camel as a beast of burden begins in its fourth year, when it is taught to kneel or rise at a given signal, and is gradually accustomed to bear increasing loads, which, in the case of exceptionally sturdy animals, sometimes weigh a thousand pounds. When too heavily laden, however, the camel, which can be as stubborn as a mule, refuses to rise—it was the last straw, you remember, which broke the camel’s back—but on the march it is exceedingly patient, yielding beneath its burden only to die. When relieved from its load it does not, like other animals, seek the shade, but prefers to kneel beside its burden in the full glare of the sun, seeming actually to enjoy the red-hot sand, a peculiarity which it shares only with the salamander. Overtaken by a sand-storm, the camel kneels with its back to the wind, and, stretching its long neck flat upon the ground, closes its eyes and nostrils and remains to all intents and purposes inanimate until the storm has passed, while its driver, muffled in his burnous, crouches in the lee of the beast, whose great hump affords some measure of protection from the blast. The camel is the only animal in the world that provides its owner with transportation, food, drink, clothing, shelter, and fuel. The flesh of the young camel, particularly the fat of the hump, is considered a great delicacy, though camels are rarely slaughtered for eating purposes save on occasions of ceremony. The Arabs either drink its milk or curdle, strain, and press it into small balls, which are dried in the sun and provide a sour but sustaining beverage when crushed and mixed with water. Its long hair is made into the garments with which the folk of the desert clothe themselves, the carpets on which they sleep, and occasionally into tents, though goat’s-hair is more commonly used for the latter purpose; while the hide is tanned into an extremely durable leather. In those regions where wood is unobtainable, the camel’s dung is used for fuel, and from it the Arabs of Upper Egypt and the Sudan extract sal ammoniac for export. Given a camel and a date-palm, the desert holds no terrors for the Arab. Though classified as a domestic animal, the camel is by nature a wild and savage beast. During the rutting-season male camels become exceedingly dangerous, evincing their anger by a curious bubbling sound, half-snarl, half-roar, engaging in fierce struggles with other males, and frequently attacking their drivers. Once, while crossing the Syrian Hamad, I saw a camel almost sever the arm of an Arab who had incautiously approached it; and on another occasion, in Mesopotamia, I was called upon to treat a Bedouin whose whole face had literally been smashed flat by a blow from the foot of an infuriated camel.