Scribner's magazine . men of thedesert. Although long a captive, and for ages,perhaps, the most serviceable of all tliecreatures which man has won from thewilds, the camel is still only partly do-mesticated, having never acquired even the small measure of affection for hismaster which we find in the other her-bivorous animals which have been wonto the service of man. The obediencewhich he renders is but a dull sub-mission to inevitable toil. The intelli-gence which he shows is very limited,and so far as I can judge from the ac-counts of those who have observed him,there is but little variation
Scribner's magazine . men of thedesert. Although long a captive, and for ages,perhaps, the most serviceable of all tliecreatures which man has won from thewilds, the camel is still only partly do-mesticated, having never acquired even the small measure of affection for hismaster which we find in the other her-bivorous animals which have been wonto the service of man. The obediencewhich he renders is but a dull sub-mission to inevitable toil. The intelli-gence which he shows is very limited,and so far as I can judge from the ac-counts of those who have observed him,there is but little variation in his men-tal qualities. As a whole, the creat-ure appears to be innately the dullestand least improvable of all our seiTi-tors. The fact is this animal belongsto an ancient and lowly type of mam-mals characterized by relatively smallbrains, and therefore of weak intelli-gence ; but for its singular serviceable-. ness in drought - ridden countries, itAvould probably have been hunted offthe earth by the early men, as havebeen many other remnants of the an-cient life. It is somewhat characteristic of theolder forms of animals, those which tookshape in the earlier Tertiary 2)eriods, thatthey are less variable than those whichacquired their characteristics in timesnearer our own. It is a fact well knownto the students of paleontology, thatspecies and genera which have beenlong on tlie earth are apt to become ina way rigid as regards their qualities ofbody and mind. It is an interestingfact that, although the camel can readilybe transplanted to many other partsof the world, where the physiographicconditions are similar to those of therealm where he has served man so well,he has never been thoroughly success-ful excej^t in the regions where he hasbeen in use for ages. In the desert re-gions of the Cordilleras of America, inSouth Africa, and in Australia, variousexperiments go to show that the creat-
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