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Another of the denizens of this part of Asia -- the camel -- has his portrait drawn by Mr. Schuyler's pen, and if the reputation of the Cossacks is improved by his account of them, that of the camel suffers proportionately. It is no doubt very fine, he tells us, to speak of these animals as ships of the desert, and to apply other poetical expressions to them; but they are in point of fact most unpleasant and disagreeable. Ungainly, unamiable and disgusting in odor, they are set down as a "sort of cross between a cow and a cassowary.
Seen in the distance, they make one think of a big over-grown ostrich, with their claw-feet and their long necks, which they turn about so as always to observe everything which comes by, and stare at you with their big vacant eyes until you have passed fully out of sight. They seem to stand cold very well, although they will take cold and die if allowed to lie down in the snow. Hence, during the winter on the steppe, their bodies are wrapped up in felt, which, when taken off in spring, carries most of the hair with it, and they then look entirely naked. If they get an idea into their heads that the road is long, or the weight too heavy, or that some part of the harness is wrong, they commence to howl. It is not exactly a groan nor a cry, but a very human, shrill and disagreeable sound; and this they never cease -- they keep it up from the time they start until they reach their destination, varying their performances by occasionally kneeling down and refusing to advance; or if they do go on, holding back in such a manner as to make progress all the slower. In this case there is nothing to do but to unfasten the animal, turn him loose, and tie his legs together, when he will begin to browse about, poking the snow away with his nose, and his driver will find him when he comes back.
Camels are much too stupid to go home, as any other animal would, but they will continue to walk on in the same direction their faces are turned, without ever thinking of master or stable or anything else. They are very revengeful, and in the spring season the male camels are very often dangerous. Many instances are known where they have bitten persons to death, and they then have to be carefully muzzled. There was one comfort to be got out of them notwithstanding -- their walk was so quiet and sauntering, that in the morning, when it was not too cold, we could read with ease in the carriage, as there was not motion enough to jolt the book. In this way we got through 'Middlemarch,' some books on Central Asia, and the whole of the Koran, to say nothing of spelling through Tartar exercises, and trying each other as we went along in pronunciation and phrases."
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A Hindoo (Hindu)
Vambery - England in the Orient
Foreign retirees in Manchuria
First Japanese Buddhist Temple in America
An early traveler in Egypt
Waiting in Ulaan Baatar
Central Asia after the battle at Penjdeh
Underground City near Bokhara
Central Asia
Bokhara
Japanese priest crosses desert to Tibet
Central Asia
