How the Camel Got His Hump

In the beginning of years, when the world was new and everything in it was still finding its feet, the animals were all learning to work for Man.

All the animals except the Camel.

The Camel lived out in the middle of the Howling Desert, because he did not want to work, and, if we're honest, because he was rather a Howler himself. He ate sticks and thorns and tamarisks and milkweed and prickles, and he was most spectacularly, most magnificently, most scrupulously idle. When anybody spoke to him — anybody at all — he only said one word.

'Humph.'

Just 'Humph.' And no more.

Now on Monday morning, the Horse came trotting up with a saddle on his back. 'Camel, O Camel,' said the Horse, 'come out and trot like the rest of us.'

'Humph,' said the Camel.

So the Horse went and told the Man.

On Tuesday morning, the Dog came trotting up with a stick in his mouth. 'Camel, O Camel,' said the Dog, 'come and fetch and carry like the rest of us.'

'Humph,' said the Camel.

So the Dog went and told the Man.

On Wednesday morning, the Ox came trudging up with the yoke on his neck. 'Camel, O Camel,' said the Ox, 'come and plough like the rest of us.'

'Humph,' said the Camel.

So the Ox went and told the Man.

At the end of the day the Man called the Horse and the Dog and the Ox together. 'I'm very sorry for you,' he said, 'but that Humph-thing in the Desert can't work, or he would have come by now. So I shall leave him alone, and you three must do his share as well as your own.'

That made the Horse and the Dog and the Ox very cross indeed. They held a great meeting on the edge of the Desert to grumble about it. And while they were grumbling, the Camel came sauntering by, chewing a mouthful of milkweed, and he laughed at them.

Then he said 'Humph,' and wandered off.

Now, at that very moment, along rolled the Djinn who was in charge of All Deserts, travelling in a spinning cloud of golden dust the way djinns like to do. He stopped and had a chat.

'That Camel of yours,' said the Horse. 'He won't trot.'

'He won't fetch,' said the Dog.

'He won't plough,' said the Ox.

'And what does he say for himself?' asked the Djinn.

'He only says Humph,' said the three of them together.

'Ah,' said the Djinn. 'I'll humph him, if you'll just wait a minute.'

The Djinn wrapped himself in his dust-cloak and sailed across the desert until he found the Camel gazing lovingly at his own reflection in a pool of water.

'My long-legged, bubble-lipped friend,' said the Djinn, 'what's this I hear about you doing no work?'

'Humph,' said the Camel.

The Djinn sat down and rested his chin on his hand and thought a Great Magic. The Camel went on admiring his own reflection.

'I shouldn't say that again if I were you,' said the Djinn.

'Humph,' said the Camel.

He had not been listening. He should have been listening.

The Djinn lifted one finger. Just one. And the Camel's smooth, handsome back began to change. It puffed up. It rose. It rounded. It ballooned. And there, right between the Camel's shoulders, appeared a great, wobbly, lolloping hump.

The Camel twisted round to look. 'What is that?' he cried.

'That,' said the Djinn calmly, 'is your Humph. You made it, all by yourself, by not helping when everyone asked. It's Thursday, and you haven't done a stroke of work since Monday. It's high time you started.'

'But how can I work,' wailed the Camel, 'with this thing on my back?'

'That's the beauty of it,' said the Djinn. 'Your Humph is packed full of magic. You'll be able to work three whole days on the trot without stopping to eat, because you can live off your Humph. Now go and help. And don't say I never did anything for you.'

So the Camel went, humph and all, and joined the Horse and the Dog and the Ox. He has worked ever since. But he has never, in all these thousands of years, caught up on those three days he missed at the beginning of the world.

And that is why every camel, everywhere, carries a great round Humph on his back. We call it a hump now, out of politeness. But if you look at a camel and squint just a little, you can still see it wobble.

(Freely retold for bedtime from Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories, 1902.)