How the Camel Got His Hump

Long ago, when the world was brand new and the animals had only just started working for Man, a Camel lived out in the middle of an empty, wind-blown desert, and he had no intention whatsoever of working. He spent his days chewing thorns, dry twigs and prickly shrubs, staring at the horizon with an expression of deep contentment, and doing, by any reasonable standard, absolutely nothing. Whenever anyone spoke to him, he gave the same reply: "Humph!" That was all, and it was more than enough to make everyone furious.

On the first Monday morning of the world, the Horse turned up, already saddled, and asked the Camel, politely enough, to come and do his share of the trotting. "Humph!" said the Camel, and the Horse went off to complain to Man. A little later the Dog came running over and suggested that the Camel might help him run errands and bring things back, as dogs did. "Humph!" said the Camel. Finally the Ox plodded up, still wearing his heavy wooden yoke, and asked for a hand in the fields. The answer, needless to say, was exactly the same.

That evening Man called the Horse, the Dog and the Ox together and explained, with genuine regret, that since the Camel would not work, the three of them would simply have to do his share as well as their own. Exhausted and indignant, the Three held a long meeting at the edge of the desert, which the Camel interrupted only once, ambling past with his mouth full of thorns to laugh at them, say "Humph!" and wander off again.

Before long a whirling column of dust came spinning over the dunes, and out of it stepped the Djinn who was in charge of All Deserts. The Three told him everything. Was it fair, they demanded, that anyone should be idle when the world was so new and there was so much to be done? The Djinn agreed that it was not, and went off to look for the Camel. He tracked him down beside a pool, gazing fondly at his own reflection.

"I'm told," said the Djinn, "that you've done no work whatsoever since the world began, and that, because of you, the Three have been working double shifts since Monday." "Humph!" said the Camel. The Djinn settled himself on a rock, said nothing for a long while, and quietly began to work out a Magic. "Careful," he said at last. "That word is starting to sound expensive." The Camel, who had never in his life been careful about anything, said it again, and no sooner had it left his lips than his back began to swell. It rose and rose until it had become an enormous, wobbling lump.

"There," said the Djinn. "That is your humph, and you have nobody to thank for it but yourself. With it, you'll be able to keep going for three days without eating, living on what you carry, and you can start by making up the three days of work you've already missed." And so the Camel went off to join the Three. To this day he still carries his humph wherever he goes, he has never quite managed to make up those lost days, and if you listen carefully, you will hear that he still says it.