"I never would have made a camel, that's certain," remarked a wise (?) lad, after taking a slight look at the ungainly beast.

"Probably not," answered his wiser father. "You would have put the same material into pop-guns or ponies."

"But see what an ugly thing he is; not a handsome feature about him," still urged the boy.

"Handsome is that handsome does," came back to him.

"Look at those abominable humps on his back. Why must he be disfigured in that way?"

"Does a trunk disfigure a traveller?" quietly asked the father.

"But what has that ill-looking hump to do with a trunk, I'd like to know?" continued his questioner.

"There are many more things you ought to 'like to know.' That ill-looking hump is his trunk, which his master sees is well packed with—fat—before he starts on the long journey over the deserts where he can't be sure of any grass or shrubs for days and days. But there is that trunk full on his back from which the camel picnics on the weary way."

"Oh! you don't say he carries water there too!"

"No; but near by, in another trunk or bottle. He has an extra supply in his stomach. Those 'clumsy' feet are beautifully formed for travelling the desert. Scientific folks might have studied for ages without discovering and patenting such a marvel of a desert foot.

"You see no beauty in his eyelashes and queer nose, but you would, after a day in the burning sun or flying sand of the desert. Why, my boy, there's no beast like him for use in his own land.

"Just see him, knelt there for his load of one thousand or fifteen hundred pounds, and objecting as plainly as a camel can, when a little too much is put upon him. Then rising up and moving on his way in such dignified patience, on and on, hour after hour, seventy-five or one hundred miles a day. Know of a horse that could do that, my boy?

"He is justly called the 'Ship of the Desert.'"

"'Ugly beast,' indeed!" repeated his father. "Think you Gordon called him so?"

"Gordon? Who did you say?"

"General Gordon. That brave, grand man who went to Khartoom to save the garrison and people there from falling into the hands of the false prophet?

"It almost seems as if the noble camel that carried him hundreds of miles on the way, knew what General Gordon was going for; he just hurried right on without a word of complaint, till he could not move a step further; then another gladly took his place and pushed on day and night till Charles James Gordon passed through the gates and the city shouted for joy.

"Now can't you see some beauty in this beast?"