CAMELOT
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CAMEO
The feet are provided with a spongy pad, that makes tnem well fitted to travel over the soft, yielding sand and also especially sure-footed in other localities. The hump is a special provision of nature for prolonged periods of fasting. It is only during a part of the year that the camel has abundant moist food; this is taken in greater quantities than is needed for immediate
i and 2 Arabian Camels and Camel drivers. 3 Bactrian or two-humped Camel.
uses, and the rest is stored in the hump in the form cf fat as reserve food. This is drawn on when food is scarce. The camel will pick up a living where other animals would starve, even dry twigs being chewed and turned to account as food. The walls of the stomach are provided with small pockets, in which water is stored, and they can travel several days in the hot, dusty desert without drinking. Camels are further adapted to desert travel by their nostrils, which can be tightly closed against sand storms.
The average value of a baggage camel among Sudanese Arabs is about $15, but a good riding dromedary is worth from $50 to $150. The motion of the ordinary camel is said to be very trying, but that of the best riding kinds is easy and soothing. The latter are also swifter. They go, ordinarily, 50 miles a day for five days consecutively, but, when pushed, can cover more ground. The baggage camels are slower. In Africa they are expected to carry five or six hundred pounds' burden, and march 25 miles a day. It is expected that they shall be watered after four days' travel. They are not docile and patient, as those who do not know them are disposed to believe, but perverse and stupid. They will eat poison herbs and bushes, if not closely watched, and, although they kneel to be loaded, they complain and groan as the burden is laid on.
The Arabian dromedary is ten or eleven feet long and seven or eight feet high at the shoulders. It has fine, reddish-brown hair, abundant around the neck, throat,
tnd tail, but absent on the breast and cnees, where the skin is naked and provided vith pads. The Bactrian camel is easily listinguished from the dromedary by its ,wo humps. It is domesticated and also mown in a wild state or, at least, wander-ng at liberty. It is -of larger size than the Iromedary, and is found in Siberia, Tibet ind China. A few years before the Civil War, some camels were imported by the government of the United States for use on the great American plains. They were neglected and allowed to run free. Some remnants of this importation are now found in parts of Texas, Arizona and New Mexico. The alpaca and llama of South America belong to the same family as the camels, but differ from their Old World relatives.
Cam'elot. Tennyson in Idylls of the King speaks thus of Camelot:
The dim rich city, roof by roof,
Tower after tower, spire beyond spire,
By grove and garden lawn and rushing brook
Climbs to the mighty hall that Merlin built...
And over all one statue in the mold
Of Arthur, made by Merlin, with a crown.
Camelot is the name that the minstrels and historians of the middle ages gave to a city that was situated in Mommouthshire, Wales, on the River Usk, where there are still the ruins of a great amphitheater and of baths, pavements, etc. Geoffrey of Monmouth (about 1150) supposed that this was the place where Arthur had held his court, for the people still call the amphitheater King Arthur's Round Table. Tennyson preserves the tradition. But, as a matter of fact, it is not likely that Arthur had much, if anything, to do with this city. It is called Caerleon, which means castle of the legion, and was so-called because the Romans, finding there a small British town, made it an army post for the Second Augustan Legion. It was a considerable town in Roman days, and after the Romans had gone it was the seat of a bishopric and abbey. It is now a village with about 1,000 inhabitants.
Cam'eo, an engraved gem in which the figure or subject is carved in relief. It i$ distinguished from an intaglio, in which the engraved subject is sunk or hollowed out like a seal. Probably dating back to the Egyptians, the art of cameo-cutting
