An Overrated Beast

The koudon News correspondent witli the Sudaii expedition sent the followi'ng reflectious on the camel : The camel, be it at ouce saicl, is an overrated beast. Thero is a great deal of him, but he is uot for his size nearly so stroug as the useful, uupreteutions donkey. Then, ton, his anatomy is so strangely conceived. His lt'gs are attached to his great, unwieldy carcasa with seemingly so little consideración for the uses to which (raerely viewed as legs) he nright be cxpected to put thein, and his neck and tai) are so obviously disproportiouate to the rest of him, and both so useless, that the camol is somehow incomplete, or, otving to some ruistake, was never iinished off at all. Even the qualities he possesses teud to strengthen oue iu this bewilderiag suspiciou. For instance, he can kick hiraself violently in the - let ns say the froutof the back - with hisforeleg. He does it constautly. Time and again have Idevoted long hours (fruitlessly, I must adniit) to au attempt to win the confidence of my favorite camel - my favorite because he is less cruel to me thau the others. I hve wooed hiin with the soft notes of my kourbash, I have tempted him with the thornieat of mimosa branches, I have puffed tobáceo smoke into his Bupercilious nostrils. And then, just as I have faucied I saw the light of sympathy dawning in his long lashed eye, he has risen all of one movement to his feet, grinned at me in a frightful manner, disclosing a forest of green and broken teeth, and gazing at me ful), with more vindictive coutempt than I have ever marked iu any human eye, has kicked himself violently in the stotuach and lay down agaiu, as who shouJd say, "Ñow, go away and don't bother, like a good boy." Then he eau gnaw his own tail - his absurd, useless little rag of a tail that isu't even worth biting. But is that au object worth living for? Or, agaiu, Ii6 has, to be sure, Beven stoiuachs, of which, vain beast, he is so inordinately proud (as thougli he had anything todo with it) that he is constantly fetchiug up one of them to show you and blows it out from his ereat, ugly throat in a horrid, glittering, transparent bulb for you to admire.