Note 119 — The Thirteenth New Year’s Feast

On Tuesday, the 7th, I marched. One day the son of Ḥakīm119 ʿĀlī was praising the milk of a camel. It occurred to me that if I could continue that for some days, it was possible that it might do some good, and it might prove agreeable to me. Āṣaf K͟hān had a Persian camel in milk, and I took a little of it. Contrary to the milk of other camels, which is not devoid of saltness, it appeared to my taste sweet and delicious, and now for a month past I have been drinking every day a cup of it, equal in quantity to half a water-cup, and it is clearly advantageous, for it quenches my thirst. It is strange that two years ago Āṣaf K. bought this camel, but at that time it had not a young one, and had no sign of milk. At this time by chance milk flowed from its dugs. They gave it every day to drink four seers of cow’s milk with five seers of wheat, one seer of black120 sugar, and one seer of fennel (bādyān), to make its milk delicious, sweet, and profitable. Certainly it suited me admirably, and was to my taste. By way of testing it, I sent for some cow’s and buffalo’s milk, and tasted all three. There was no comparison in sweetness and flavour with the milk of this camel. I ordered them to give the same kind of food to some other female camels, that it might become clear whether the purity was in consequence of eating good food, or whether it was due to the natural sweetness of this (particular) camel’s milk.121