The ship of the desert

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Part of The Young Citizen: The Magazine for Young People

Title: The ship of the desert
Year: 1940
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Fulltext: THE YOUNG CITIZEN Dtctmbtr~-- 1940 ELEMENTARY SCIENCE SECTION THE SHIP OF THE DESERT A VAST TREELESS DESERT of sand is not unlike the limitl-ess desert of the ocean. The· animal best adapted to travel across the sandy desert is the camel. And so this unwieldy animal is frequently referred to as "the ship of the desert." You may have seen a camel. At least you have seen pictures of camels. If you examine a camel, you will decide that everything about this animal is queer. His neck and legs look. too long and sprawling for his body. His feet are split into two hoofed toes almost up to his ankle. · His head is small and ugly. His brown eyes fairly pop out of his head from sockets too small for them. His nostrils are bias slits. He can open them wide, or close them almost shut during the terrible sand storms of his native deserts. His rough hair looks as if it had never been combed. On his knobby knees and arched breast-bone he wears tough leathery pads. Finally, a hump on his ·back does not add to his appearance. Don't go too near a camel's head. Sometimes, for no apparent cause at all, he has a terrible fit of rage. Then he tries to bite and kick the person nearest. One of the most noticeable things· about the camel is the queer way in which he chews his food. His lower jaw swings from side to side like a hammock. His upper lip is cleft up the middle .. The camel reaches for and feels his food with thi~ thick split lip as if it were made up of two fingers. For many hundreds of years the camel has been one of the most useful animals to men, because of his ·great strength, and his ability to endure heat, thirst, and hunger. But he is a very stupid beast, and 'has never learned to do more than a few simple things. He never seems to know or care for his driver, who may . have brought him up from a baby. He has as little sense as a sheep, is as illtempered as an angry bull, and as stubborn as a mule. He works, tiut not willingly as a horse does. One of the few things a camel has learned to do is to kneel when he is ·ordered to do so. His knee-pads protect his joints from the hard ground, but he moans and groans as if in terrible pain. He knows some kind of a load is to be put on, and he complains aloud. He doesn't wait to find if the load is heavy or light. He carries with ease 500 pounds ot goods for hundreds of miles across wide deserts. If you get seasick easily you ·had better not try to ride a camel. He lifts both feet on one. side at· the same time, tilting his body sideways. ·Then he lifts the two feet on the other side. So you must roll over and back. Tossing and pitching, heaving and rolling, you feel December, 1940 THE YOUNG CITIZEN as if you were in a sailboat on rough water. So violent is the motion that the camel-police of Egypt, who often ride day and night over the desert on racing camels in pursuit of smugglers, are compelled to bind their bodies tightly with long strips of cloth. The camel is, indeed, the ship of the desert in more ways than one. For food, after a day's travel, a camel scarce, and his stomach has li.ttle cells for storing water, so he can go a week without drinking, in case of need. Camels carry burdens ·for their masters, furnish flesh and milk for food for their masters, and with their hair provide material for weaving cloth. With-· out this ugly, stupid, useful beast the hot deserts of the Old World would lie unpeopled and unknown. The camel subTl1e Sliip of 1/ie Desert is given a small measure of hard dates or dried beans. Besides, he eats the twigs, thistles, and thorny shrubs that grow here and there in the desert. Camels will eat anything. They will chew their own leather bridles or tent cloth, and they consider an old mat or a basket to eat as. a great delicacy. The camel's big, solid hump is full of fat to be drawn upon when food is mits to his treUtment, but remains untamed, sullen, and forbidding. There is just one thing for which the camel has a soft feeling. The mother camel shows affection for her baby. When the baby camel is bor~, he is so weak and wobbly, he can scarcely walk. The mother perhaps has to go with the caravan of hundreds of other camels, (Please turn to page 477.) Decemher, 1940 THE YOUNG CITIZEN 477 SHIP OF THE DESERT BRAHMS PUPPET THEATER (Continued from pag; 465) (Continued from page 463) ( Conti~ued from page 474) traveling 250 or more-miles brahmz) Much of our scenery is a day across the burning 3. Can you t e 11 of homemade. Our favorite sand and rocky hills. Then Brahms' early life? scenes are those we painted the baby camel is put into 4. What music critic ourselves. Some pieces of a hammock, and is carried bro u g ht the music of scenery are glued on· blocks by one of the freight camels. Brahms to the attention of of wood, like huge boulders This freight camel may car- the p"ublic? How? for the center of the stage. ry many other things' besides 5. Can you give a list of Our ch~racters are most -leather bags of water, compositions by Brahms? of them either of our own bales of cloth and dates, designing or cut from jugs of oil, and blocks of . d d . h magazines and mounted. rock salt. · ared provh~ he wit d spongy (This is a good occupation Th . . pa s w 1c sprea some- f 1 h"ld ) ere 1s a curious reason h h . lk or a conva escent c 1 . why the baby camel is not w at as .t e. ammal wa s They move on stiff wires, put on his mother's back. on the yieldmg sand.. pushed or pulled invisibly. Camels are so stupid that _There are no record~ of Some stages have grooves if the mother could not see ~ild camels, _so d~mesl!ca- for the figures to move in, her baby, even if he were on lion '?ust have oeen ac- but o1.1rs can move freely all her own back, she would c~mphshed early. In the over the stage. The wires be apt to think he ha"d been Bible we read that Abra- are soldered to flat pieces of left behind. Then she might ham took on his journey zinc with upright bent turn and run back to the last "she e p a n d oxen and ; pieces soldered to the center camping place. If the baby camels." We read also that. to hold the. figures. We is on another camel she can Job at one time had 6,000, have about a dozen wires. see him, and she ' follows camels. In niodern times 1 1 (Figure 4) contentedly. some Arabian and African If two persons manipuAfter the day's march tribes own hundreds of; late t?e "'.ires, standi_ng at she has her baby all to her- I thousands of these animals. op~osite sides of the stage self. She nurses him and I · (hidden by the curtains), pets him with her sensitive - - - they can work v~ry efficientsplit lip. He cuddles up to REVIEW ly _and also g1v~. greater. her for warmth for after I I. Why is the camel variety to the voices than the terrible heat 'of the day, called "the ship of the des- if only one person puts on the desert nights are often ert"? the P!ay. . cold. 2. How is the camel It IS lots of fun to have a There are two kinds of adapted to desert life? puppet theater. First make camels.-the Arabian, or 3. Tell of the camel's t~e the:\ Then write the single-humped camel of disposition. IP ay. adefithe necessary A · S . . . scenery an gures. Pracrab1a, yria,. and Africa; 4. ~hy ao Y?u th~nk the tice speakin the words and and the Bac~rian ~amel of camel 1s a stupid ammal? operating t;e figures. Then western Asia. with two 5. How is the camel use- you are ready to have an humps. The feet of both ful to man? audience.