Camel ride
Camel ride |
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Riding a camel
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Riding a camel is a unique experience and quite different from riding a horse.
Because of its height, one mounts a camel while it is crouching.
When the camel rises, it straightens its hind legs first, thrusting the rider forward with a jolt, so one needs to hold on tight to the saddle handle.
Only then does the camel straighten its front legs and lifts its rider about two meters above ground.
The camel's gait is also different from that of the horse.
It moves in a parallel fashion with both legs of the same side, while the horse advances the front leg of one side together with the hind leg of the other side. That is why the typical back and forth swaying movement in camel riding is different to that of horse riding.
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Types of camel
Two types of camels may be distinguished.
The one-humped camel (Camelus Dromedarius) and the two-humped camel (Camelus Bactrianus) - the latter being shorter, longer and heavier than the one-hump camel. Additionally, its hair is darker and longer, as protection against the cold in the areas of its habitat.
The single-humped camel can be found in the regions of North and Central Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, and both sides of the Persian Gulf.
The two-humped camel can be found in India, China, Mongolia and Iran. In Iran both types are found.
In Israel, however, we find only the single-humped camel.
It is the main form of transport for the Bedouin desert nomads; even though they have now moved to more permanent dwellings, they still hold on to camels for transport and plowing.
The camel is also an asset that can be traded, and serves as payment for bride price or even ransom!
The Ship of the Desert
In addition to being a means of transportation, the camel provides the desert resident with meat, milk, wool for clothes and tent-cloth for the tents, leather for shoes, saddles and tent strings, while dried camel dung provides fire fuel.
The camel is an animal that is supremely adapted to the environment of the desert regions where it lives, some of its distinctive features being:
- The mating season of the camel is mid-winter.
- Gestation lasts between 12 and 14 months, which means that the initial suckling period is while the desert is covered with fresh pasture, and fresh water holes, which are important for the production of milk, are still available.
- The suckling period lasts for one year, but milk production is flexible, that is to say, the milk glands produce milk only while there is suckling; thus a waste of liquids is avoided.
- Camel urine is extremely concentrated and its droppings are very dry, again avoiding a waste of liquids.
- Camel skin is covered with wool, providinginsulation from heat and cold.
- During the summer the camel sheds its long hair (and only then do the Bedouin gather the wool - they do not shear it, because the camel needs it.)
- The camel's legs are long, to keep its body well away from the red-hot earth.
- A thick skin covers the joints of its legs and its belly, protecting them, when crouched, from the heat of the ground and the hard stony surface.
- The camel always crouches with its narrowest side - the head - exposed to the sun, thereby absorbing less heat (see picture).
- The camel's lips and mouth are hard and resilient to thorny plants abundant in the desert, and constituting the major part of its food, but it will not shun soft plants when they are available.
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Its long neck allows it to reach up easily to the foliage of the Desert Acacia or down to the ground, despite its long legs, in order to eat low plants.
- In times of plenty, the camel eats and stores the excess food in its hump, in the form of fats.
- In addition, the camel's stomach has special bladders for the storage of water, which are held closed by special muscles.
- Camels are capable of surviving without water or food for a whole week without weakening. At these times, the hump shrinks, converting the fats into energy and water.
- When it reaches a well or a water hole, the camel will drink around one hundred litres at one go and fill its storage areas!
- Fluctuations of about 6 degrees in the camel's body temperature are also a means of adaptation to desert conditions where there is high temperature fluctuation, since there is no need to waste body heating energy when it is cold, and when it is hot there is no loss of liquids to cool the body.
- Its eyes have a double covering, while its ears are covered in hair as protection during sandstorms often raging in the desert.
- The camel has hooves but their under-part is covered by a pad with a spongy tissue which absorbs the shock of walking, and also widens the surface of its feet, to prevent it from sinking into the sand.
Camels are stubborn animals, which makes training them a difficult process. If it is done properly, however, the animal will become docile and faithful.
During the mating season, camels may turn viciously on anyone, even its master, putting him in danger of being kicked and bitten.
The camel's life span is around 40 years.
It loses its teeth in old age and used to be left to starve to death, which was a slow and cruel process, because camels are good at coping with starvation. Today's camel owners do not leave their animals to undergo this misery, so when the symptoms of old age appear, they slaughter them.
Modern research shows that camel milk is an extremely healthy product which contains a medically important substance.
In Israel, a farm has now been set up to breed camels for milk production (and you can even buy ice cream from this milk).
One of the substances in camel milk has been shown to be good for diabetics, as well as people suffering from ulcers.
The camel's origins
The camel's evolution can be followed through paleontology: an unbroken chain of fossils evidence shows how it has evolved to its present form - from creatures the size of dogs 40 million years ago in the north of the American continent.
In Asia and Africa the camel makes its appearance only when it has already reached its current evolutionary stage, after disappearing from the American continent. However, four other animals which have evolved from the same source are to be found throughout the Americas: the llama, alpaca, vicuña and guanaco, of which the closest to the camel is the llama.
In the mid-19th century, the camel was brought to Australia where it was used primarily as a racing animal.
The camel and Judaism
At one time, Bible scholars doubted whether Abraham could have received camels from Pharaoh in return for Sarai his wife (Genesis 12:16), because, so it was argued, the camel had not reached the Middle East by that period. However, excavations have since yielded camel bones dating to the First Dynasty in Egypt.
Although the camel chews the cud and has a split hoof, in accordance with the verses Leviticus 11:4 and Deuteronomy 14:7, it is not considered fit for consumption, since the text states that it does not have a split hoof. The reason for this statement is undoubtedly because the structure of its hoof is hidden beneath the thick pads underneath its foot.
The fitness for consumption of camel milk is still a subject of discussion under the Rabbinic authorities.
In some Oriental Jewish communities, children were traditionally brought up on camel's milk, since the Biblical verses cited only prohibited the eating of camel meat.
Throughout the entire period of the Bible and the Mishnah, camels were used for warfare, transport and as beasts of burden, as well as a measure of wealth - as is still the case today among the Beduin.
Text and pictures by: Pinhas Baraq