Camote

“ When the sementeras are planted they present a clean and beautiful appearance—even the tips of the rice blades twisted off are invariably crowded into the muddy bed to assist in fattening the crop.
As many as a dozen women often work together in one sementera to hasten the planting. There are usually two or three little girls with their mothers, who while away the hours playing work. They stuff up the chinks of the stone walls with dirt and vegetable matter; they carry together the few camotes discovered in this last handling of the old camote bed ”

“ During the period when the water-soaked soil of the sementera is turned for transplanting palay the women engaged in such labor generally lay aside their skirts. Sometimes they retain a girdle and tuck an apron of camote leaves or of weeds under it before and behind. I have frequently come upon women entirely naked climbing up and down Page 114the steep, stone dikes of their sementeras while weeding them, and also at the clay pits where Samoki women get their earth for making pottery. ”

“ It is a heavy, compact wood, and is used by the woman until worn down 6 or 8 inches, when it usually becomes the property of a small girl for gathering wild plants for the family pigs. The su-wan′ of the woman of Bontoc and Samoki comes, mostly in trade, from the mountains near Tulubin. It is employed in picking the earth loose in all unirrigated sementeras, as those for camotes, millet, beans, and maize. It is also used to pick over the earth in camote sementeras when the crop is gathered. ”

“ They are nearly always steep slopes, and quickly lose their fertility. For that reason, they are abandoned after a period that varies in different districts of Ifugao according as camotes are a more or less important factor in the subsistence of the people. Thus in Banaue, where camotes form a very large part of the subsistence of the people, the fields are cultivated [44] for five or even six years, if located near the village ”

“ On large, well-fenced, carefully cultivated tracts of ground the schoolboys grow camotes, upland rice, corn, bananas, cowpeas, beans, pineapples, eggplants, arrowroot, and in some cases, cacao and coffee. Instead of learning what individual plants will do when grown quite by themselves under abnormal conditions, they learn to produce real crops. They become interested in the introduction of American sweet potatoes in place of the less nutritious camotes, in the selection of seed corn, in the generalization of the better varieties of bananas, and in other practical matters. ”

“ We felt worn and weary when a start was made at two o'clock, and our cup of bitterness was full when we were deposited, bag and baggage, a few hundred yards from the gate, and told that we must spend the night amidst a sea of small fish drying on the shore, and surrounded on all sides by dirty Bedou huts. These fish, which are rather larger than sardines, are put out to dry by thousands along this coast. Men feed on them and so do the camels; they make [82] lamp-oil out of them; they say the fish strengthens the camel's back, and they consider it good for camels to go once a year to the sea. ”

“ To protect the camel against the shifting sands and the burning heat of the sun, nature has further fitted it for its peculiar home and life. It has the power to close its nostrils at will to keep out the sand. Long lashes protect its eyes, not only from the storms of wind and sand, but also from the glare and the heat.
From time immemorial the camel has been known as the beast of burden in India, Arabia, and Africa. This species, the one-humped camel, or dromedary, differs somewhat from that having two humps. The latter has been found in Central Asia, Persia, and the south of Russia. ”

“ It was market-day, and as we descended the hill and arrived in the scene below, with our nine camels heavily laden with the heads and horns of a multitude of different beasts, from the gaping jaws of hippopotami to the vicious-looking heads of rhinoceroses and buffaloes, while the skins of lions and various antelopes were piled above masses of the much-prized hide of the rhinoceros, we were beset by crowds of people, who were curious to know whence so strange a party had come. ”

“ If it happen that the camel dies by the way, the carrier is to supply us with another; and therefore, those carriers [FN#42] who come from Egypt to Mecca with the Caravan, bring with them several spare camels; for there is hardly a night passeth but many die upon the road, for if a camel should chance to fall, it is seldom known that it is able to rise again; and if it should, they despair of its being capable of performing the journey, or ever being useful more. It is a common thing, therefore, when a camel once falls, to take off its burden and put it on another, and then kill it ”

“ Now I see a few camels stalking silently, slowly, and sedately on, variously laden—some with baskets of large stones for building purposes, others with long pieces of timber on each side, others with skins of water and so on; then an Arab lady on donkey-back, riding after the manner of men, and covered from head to foot in unsightly black wrappers, having just a slit in them, through which can be seen a large pair of lustrous dark eyes, and down the bridge of her nose are some brass-looking ornaments, resembling as much as anything a row of thimbles inserted in one another. ”

“ On leaving a depot and making a start early in the morning, camels, like horses, may not be particularly inclined to fill themselves with water, while they might do so in the middle of the day, and thus may leave a depot on a long dry march not half filled. The Arabs in Egypt and other camel countries, when starting for a desert march, force the animals, as I have seen—that is, read of—to fill themselves up by using bullocks' horns for funnels and pouring the water down their throats till the creatures are ready to burst. ”

“ But in past ages vast numbers of camel-like forms lived in North America, which found their way on the one hand to the south, where the Llamas, Alpacas, and Guanacos now feed on the mountains of Peru and Chili, while on the other they travelled over Northern Asia to the deserts of Africa270 and Arabia, and there became those curious desert-animals which the Arabs used and still use as their beasts of burden. A strange old fellow is the camel, with his two-toed hairy feet, with only nail-hoofs upon them, and his hard pads on his thighs and legs, on which he rests when he lies or kneels. ”

“ Yet if one had only to look at the stomach, which is, after all, the distinctive characteristic of the order, camels and llamas would stand in the first rank as ruminants. Besides the usual character of four stomachs, their paunch and honeycomb-bag are furnished with large cells which act as reservoirs, and fill with water whenever the animal has the chance of drinking freely, and from whence in time of drought he draws it up into his mouth and swallows it. This is what makes the camel so valuable to the wandering tribes in the great deserts of Africa and Asia. ”

“ Finding, therefore, the camels would not rise, we killed two of them, and took so much flesh as might serve for the deficiency of bread, and, from the stomach of each of the camels, got about four gallons of water, which the Bishareen Arab managed with great dexterity. It is known to people conversant with natural history, that the camel has within him reservoirs in which he can preserve drink for any number of days he is used to. ”

“ Though we generally attach the term ‘camel’ to that species of the camelus found in India, where great numbers are bred by persons who make a very large profit from their labors, the animal under consideration, having but one hump, or bunch, on its back, should, properly, be called a ‘dromedary.’ Whatever may be the true designation, the utility of the animal in a climate, and on a soil, to which it is so admirably suited by nature, is indisputable ”

“ There is no regular system of camel-breeding in Asia Minor, although that animal is the only beast of burden and is absolutely indispensable. Most of the animals used here come from Arabia, where they are bred by the Bedouins, and at the age of three years are broken to load. The strength of a camel begins to decline at twenty years, and after he reaches twenty-five he is not worth much. An ordinary caravan is made up of groups of seven camels in charge of one man, who leads them, feeds them, and cares for them from the time he is twenty years old until they all die together. ”

“ Extinct camels of numerous species abounded in North America in Miocene, Pliocene, and even Post-pliocene times, and one has also been found in North-western India, but none whatever among all the rich deposits of mammalia in Europe. We are thus told, as clearly as possible, that from the North American continent as a centre the camel tribe spread westward, over now-submerged land at the shallow Behring Straits and Kamschatka Sea, into Asia, and southward along the Andes into South America. Tapirs are even more interesting and instructive. ”

“ The camels stand docile, pathetic, shifting their great loads; for it hurts the soft pads of their feet to stand laden, it is easier to walk. The men scatter and squat, each by himself, but each turned from the setting sun toward Mecca. The water of the desert is the sand; and with the sand the men make their ablutions. They place their sandals beside them; all that is unclean in the folds of the burnouse they lay aside. ”

“ The camels (Tylopoda) certainly originated in the northern hemisphere, but although their birthplace has been confidently claimed for North America, an equal, if not stronger, claim may be made on the part of Central Asia. From the latter area, where wild camels still exist, the group may be assumed to have made its way at an early period into North America; whence, at a much later date, it finally penetrated into South America. In the Old World it seems to have reached the fringe of the African continent, where its wanderings in a wild state were stayed. ”

“ About twenty men on camels, armed with lances, and as many young men on foot, with swords, came to meet him, and those upon camels made their beasts kneel down at some distance from him, as out of respect coming to kiss his hands, as of a holy person belonging to the Caaba, their sanctuary at Mecca.
"The vain, imprudent man dismounted from his camel to give them a more easy opportunity of paying him their respects, and when one of them held him by the hand in token of friendship, another cut him across the hams with a broad-sword, and a third run him through the back with a lance. ”

“ The Arab knew camels too well to attempt further persuasion, and, with angry words, for his arm burned and smarted, walked off and left mother and baby in the desert. There was every probability that the mother-camel would starve to death, for, although able to eat the hard, sharp thorns which are found in the desert, and even pieces of dry wood or other hard substances which are found occasionally, the camel cannot live long on this sort of food. ”

“ On the 10th Prempeh died—another victim to the poison—and I began to dread the morning. Fortunately our new camp was free from poison, and no more deaths occurred. It was sad to think of our camels dying thus after so many hundred miles of desert bravely traversed—yesterday a picture of strength and life, to-day food for those scavengers of the bush, the dingoes. What satisfied howls they gave forth all night long; for, like crows or vultures, they seem to collect from far and wide round the body of any dead thing. ”

“ THE SHIP OF THE DESERT From Burckhardt’s Travels in Nubia.
Of all animals under the sun, perhaps the very ugliest is the camel; but life in the deserts of Africa and Arabia could not go on at all without the constant presence of this clumsy-looking creature. Some African tribes keep camels entirely for the use of their milk and flesh; and it is noticeable that these animals are much shyer and more timid than their brothers in Syria and Arabia, who will instantly come trotting up to any fresh camel that appears on the scene, or obey the call of any Bedouin, even if he is a stranger. ”

“ It is the shadows of the camels moving towards Mecca. How silently they slip over the ground, beautiful shadows. Soon they are out in the desert flat on the golden sands. And then the sun will set and they will be one with night.
Chamberlain:
If your Majesty has time for such things there are the camels themselves.
King:
No, no, I do not wish to watch the camels. They can never take me out to the beautiful desert to be free forever from cities. Here I must stay to do the work of a King. Only my dreams can go, and the shadows of the camels carry them, to find peace by the tents of the Arabs. ”

“ Little fires spring up, built over stones. Voices are low; noises die down one by one⁠—braying of donkeys, gurgling grunts of camels, bleating of goats and kids soon to be sacrificed. Groups gather closely round he fires, for the night air nips. Coffee is made in tiny china cups, and the gaunt heads of the camels thrust forward over the very shoulders of their owners They chew and chew and chew. Those dark bundles in the sand lying apart by themselves, are men already asleep, wrapped from head to feet in sheets of black and blue and white and yellow. ”

“ We could see every day long strings of camels on the horizon, carrying rations for the Turks from their base at Shamrán above Kut down to their forces at Sanaiyat and Magassis.
The usual book of words about camels informs the reader that they are liable to slip and split themselves up if allowed to travel over wet or slippery ground. In Mesopotamia, however, the camel seems not to worry at all when going over land submerged by floods, and carrying on generally under all conditions. ”

“ Phillipps and F. James went off to Amadeb, to complain to Rasalulu, a deputy of King John of Abyssinia, about our late attack, and endeavour to get their rifles back. Whether they ever succeeded in doing so I don’t know; but I should think probably not.
To-day we lost another camel; this makes the sixth we have lost in the Basé country. A camel is a particularly stupid kind of animal, and does not seem to know what is good for him, or rather, what is bad for him, for he will frequently eat a very poisonous green-looking shrub, called “heikabeet.” ”