and bushes
and thickets in it. But we call the wild place a desert when trees and
bushes and thickets will not grow there, because the ground is all
covered with _sand_. In the desert there is nothing but sand all over
the ground, and not a single tree or a tiny blade of grass anywhere,
as far as you can see.

And that is the place where camels can do some very wonderful things,
as I shall now tell you. The camels do not actually live in the desert
all the time, but in countries quite near there.

First I must tell you that there is only one country to-day, called
Central Asia, where camels are still found wild. In all other places
they are not wild any more, for in those countries people have lived
for many thousand years; so the people caught all the camels once upon
a time, and tamed them.

Since that time the camels have been used by people in those countries
for their work, just as we use horses here; and rich people in those
countries count their wealth by the number of camels they have. Just
as we say here that a rich man has a million dollars, or two millions,
or three millions, so in those countries a man is thought to be rich
who has one thousand camels, or two thousand, or three thousand.

It was just the same in those countries in olden times. You have read
in your Bible history that Job was once a rich man, as he owned
thousands of camels.

You will see from the pictures facing page 128 that there are two
kinds of camels; one kind has a huge hump on the middle of his back;
and the other kind has two humps, with a gap between. The _One-Hump
camel_ is called an _Arabian camel_, or a _dromedary_. Once upon a
time he lived in the country called Arabia; that is the country from
where you get your lovely old stories of Ali Baba and Aladdin. But now
the One-Hump camel also lives in other countries near there. These
are all very hot countries, with many miles of desert here and there.

The _Two-Humps camel_ is called a _Bactrian camel_, as he lives in a
country which was once called Bactria. That country also has many
deserts, like Arabia; but as it is far to the north of Arabia, it is
very cold in winter, and the snow then lies very thick on the ground.
So try and remember this:

The One-Hump camel lives in a country where there are many miles of
desert, and where it is very hot almost the whole year. So the
One-Hump camel has to guard himself only from the _hot burning sand_.

The Two-Humps camel lives