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the country side. But the meat of she-camels is not found
anywhere, which is not surprising, because she-camels
are kept for continuous progeny purposes. A she-camel
is a tender mother that takes good care of its young ones.
During the first months of birth, it would not allow any
animal or human being to come near its young ones, even
if it has to exhibit violence in an aggressive spirit. If a
young camel should accidentally die, its mother would
stand motionless over its body, weeping with real tears
and would not leave the place except with the dead one.
Its other young ones imitate their mother’s behavior in
this respect. When the young one is weaned, a small piece
of a tree is put round its nose, which hurts the she-camel
in case it tries to suckle it. In such case it stops suckling
it and the young one gradually turns to the herbs of the
grazing areas. When this takes place in the winter, when
the desert thrives, the weaned camel would soon grow
up rapidly, would become strong and stand on its slender
legs.
We have got used to consider camels quite calm and
docile. They only exhibit their pugnacity, rather rarely,
by spitting on those who are determined to draw too
near them in the zoo. However, it transpired that this is
not the case. It is true they bear pain patiently; they can
bear hunger and thirst patiently as well as long travel
for days through the hot desert, carrying loads that can
exceed two hundred kilograms. Nomads always prefer to
use she-camels for such tasks because male camels can
sometimes be irascible and extremely aggressive. One
must be very cautious when they attack one another, and
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sometimes they can attack human beings. Their bites and
kicks can be extremely dangerous. Hence, those deemed
dangerous are muzzled. When excited or angry, a camel
would blow its mouth like a ball in view of the slackness
of its epiglottis, and can eject the obviously no ـdisgusting
green liquid from its first stomach ordinary spitting at all,
which can reach one liter in volume. The she-camel, on
the other hand, is much more calm and forbearing. Heavy
loads weigh down on she-camels, which suffer under
such heavy loads and express their suffering in the form
of moaning and crying with real tears. There is another
unpleasant they are extremely vengeful. ـcharacteristic of
male camels. This trait is the subject of many tales which
my Saudi friends have narrated to me.
Once a herdsman of a small herd of camels decided to
water his camels from a shallow stream that was formed
after heavy rain. He approached one of the camels that had
a special position of leadership among the other camels and
urged it to rise but the camel was recalcitrant and would
not move. The man resorted to issuing loud cries and even
struck it with his stick to force it to rise, but to no effect. It
is well known that if the leader does not proceed forward
the other camels would not move either. The bedouin kept
trying to make the stubborn camel to move and finally he
gave up and let him be when he noticed in its eyes looks
that made him feel uneasy.
In the evening, the camels moved voluntarily towards
the stream and returned after having filled their stomachs
with water, their sides inflated and their humps strong. But
this man, who was well aware of the nature of camels was