Identifier: rooseveltsafrica00ungerfr (find matches)
Title: Roosevelt's African trip; the story of his life, the voyage from New York to Mombasa, and the route through the heart of Africa, including the big game and other ferocious animals, strange peoples and countries found in the course of his travels
Year: 1909 (1900s)
Authors: Unger, Frederic William, b. 1875
Subjects: Roosevelt, Theodore, 1858-1919 Game and game-birds
Publisher: (Philadelphia?, PA.)
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Smithsonian Libraries

View Book Page: Book Viewer
About This Book: Catalog Entry
View All Images: All Images From Book
Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book.

Text Appearing Before Image:
these pads are notprovided by nature, but are the result of often-repeated pressure.It is true enough that if we use our hands much for hard w^ork, suchas digging or wood-cutting, the skin of the palms becomes hard andhorny, and this certainly is the result of constant pressure from thehandles of our tools. But the animal is born with the pads. They donot come to it after it has been working for man for some little time, 196 THE GIRAFFE—CAMEL—BUIFALO and so we have direcl proof that they are really a natural gift, providedin order that the animal may be suited to the work which it has toperform. Unless the camel could kneel on these pads, it would be uselessto man, for it is so tall that it could neither be mounted nor loadedwhen standing- upright, and so would not be of service either forriding or for carrying. As it is, however, it is an animal whose valuecan scarcely be held too highly, and well deserves the poetical namewhich the Arabs have given to it, the Ship of the Desert.
Text Appearing After Image:
CALLTXC; THE CAMELS The laborious and abstemious camel, like the palm, is all-essen-tial to the desert, as the desert is all-essential to it. Without itsinvaluable aid, the wastes of the Sahara, or of Libya and Nubia,would be impassable. It is properly styled the treasure of the East;and to the wandering tribes it is, in truth, their wealth, their life, theirall. It supplies them with every article of primary necessity—withfood, clothing, habitation, fuel, and the means of transport. The flesh THE GIRAFFE—CAMEL—BUFFALO 197 of the young camel is inferior to beef or mutton, but it is savory, andnot difficult of digestion. The female yields an abundance of milk,almost as nutritious and agreeable to the taste as that of the cow.The hair makes a wool of coarse quality, but long, tough, stout, andeasily worked. Out of the skin capital garments, coverings and tentsare made; the sinews are manufactured into harness, and applied tovarious other purposes. Camel-leather is not inferior in

Note About Images