HiEBOOLTPHICS.
l^X — Hpj
£ a n i o ^
HleroglTph of Csmfttiisea.
Cambyses is probably the " Ahasuerus*' mentioned h Ezra iv, 6, as the Persian king addressed by the en- emies of the Jews for the purpose of frustrating the rebmldmg of the Temple, B.C. 629. Josephus also calls this monarch Cam^tee, the eon of CyruSf and he gives the correspondence between the king and his Syrian vicerq3rs in detail (Ant, xi, ii, 1 and 2), which he bas evidently blended with that which took place ^ith his successor, the pseudo-Smerdis (" Artaxerxes," Ezra iv, 7 sq.), since he does not name the latter, but only allodes to the usurpation of the Magians in the interval before the accession of Darius Hystaspis (ib, ^ 0* See Ahasubbus.
Camel (a word found in essentially the same fbrm in an the Shemitio languages [Heb. hv^ gcanal' ; Syr- ^ the same; Chald. gamdla; ancient Arabic, j!n»e/, modem, Mffunel]; in the Greek [ca/ifjXoc] and Latin [tanUnt^ wheiuBe it has passed into the languages of II-D
Weetem Europe; also in the Coptic hamod. In San- scrit it occurs as kramila and kramihka ; and hence Schlegel traces the word to the root kram = to ttep. Bocliart derivea it from the root bs^ to revenge^ be- cause the camel is vindictive and retains the memory of ii^uries [animal fivri<rucaKov] ; but Qesenius consid- ers it more likely that ^^A should have assumed the force of the cognate Arabic root jmudj to carrg), an animal of the order Ruminantia^ and genus Camelus. As constituted by most modem naturalists, it com- prises two species positively distinct, but still possess- ing the common characters of being ruminants with- out horns, without muzzle, with nostrils forming ob- lique slits, the upper lip divided, and separately mov- able and extensile, the soles of the feet homy, with two toes covered by unguiculated daws, the limbs long, the abdomen drawn up, while the neck, long and slender, is bent down and up, the reverse of that of a horse, which is arched. According to other natural* ists, however, the two-humped camel, sometimes call- ed the Bactrian camel, is a variety only, not a distinct species (Patterson, ItUrod. to Zoology, p. 417). Camels have thirty-six teeth in all, of which three cuspidate on each side above, six incisors, and two cuspidate on each, side below, though differently named, still have all more or less the character of tushes. They have callosities on the breast-bone and on the flexures of the joints. Of the four stomachs, which they have in common with other animals chewing the cud, the ventriculus, or paunch, is provided with membranous cells to contain an extra provision of water, enabling the species to subsist for four or more days without drinking. But when in the desert, the camel has the faculty of smelling it afkr off, and then, breaking through all control, he rushes onward to drink, stir- ring the element previously with a fore-foot until quite muddy. CaSnels are temperate animals, being fed on a march only once in twenty-four hours, with about a pound weight of dates, beans, or barley, and are enabled in the wildemess, by means of their long flexible necks and strong cuspidate teeth, to snap as they pass at thistles and thorny plants, mimosas and caper-trees. They are emphatically called " the ships of the desert;" having to cross re^ons where no veg- etation whatever is met with, and where they could not be enabled to continue their march but for the aid of the double or single hunch on the back, which, be- ing composed of muscular fibre, and cellular substance highly adapted for the accumulation of fat, swells in proportion as the animal is healthy and well fed, or sinks by absorption as it supplies the want of suste- nance under fatigue and scarcity ; thus giving an ex- tra stock of fbod without eating, till by exhaustion the skin of the prominences, instead of standing up, falls over, and hangs like empty bags on the side of the dorsal ridge. Now when to these endowments are added a lofty stature and great agility ; eyes that dis- cover minute ol^ects at a distance ; a sense of smelling of prodigious acuteness, ever kept in a state of sensi- bility by tlie animal's power of closing the nostrils to exclude the acrid particles of the sandy deserts ; a spirit, moreover, of patience, not the result of fSear, but of forbearance, carried to the length of self-eacrifice in the practice of obedience, so often exemplified by the cameVs bones in great numbers strewing the smikce of the desert ; when we perceive it f^imished with a dense wool to avert the solar heat and nightly cold while on the animal, and to clothe and lodge his mas- ter when manufiEtctured, and know that the female carries milk to fsed him, we have one of the most in- controvertible examples of Almighty power and be- neficence in the adaptation of means to a direct pur- pose that can well be submitted to the apprehension of man ; for, without the existence of the camel, im- mense portions of the surfiftce of the earth would be uninhabitable, and even impassable. Surely the Arabs
CAMEL
60
CAMEL
are right: " Job*8 beast is a monnment of (Sod's mer- cyl"
1. The Bactrian camel (cameltu BaetrumuM of au- thors) is large and robust ; naturally with two hunch- es, and orij^ially a native of the highest table-lands