Let me quote you a passage from England, Their England, a little-known work by one A.G. McDonnell in which is described the demeanour of a group of huntsmen assembling for a meet:
"The men wore shiny toppers and scarlet coats, and strode about like captains of Spanish galleons, or colonels of Napoleon's light cavalry. They saw no one except each other, but allowed themselves to be seen by everyone, chins out, heads high, superbly disdainful like the camels of Bactria who alone knew the 100th name of God."
It was the final simile I found appealing. Islam, it seems, has defined a list of 99 permissible names for Allah, a list which is known as al-asma'ulhusna, or "the beautiful names", and which is reproduced as an introduction to many printed editions of the Koran. The names include ArRahman, "the Compassionate", ArRahim, "the All-Merciful", AlMalik, "the Sovereign", AlQuddus, "the Holy One", and so on up to 99.
Throughout the centuries, however, there have been persistent rumours that there are in fact 100 names of God, the 100th having a restricted circulation. In the early days of Sufism, the Sufi priests claimed they alone knew the 100th name but were not permitted to disclose it. A more appealing story is that the 100th name of God is known to no human being, but only to the double-humped camels of the city of Bactria in what we now know as Afghanistan. It is for this reason, it is said, that the face of a Bactrian camel has such a smug, supercilious, but quite inscrutable expression.
But it may be that the camel is just proud that he has mastered the equally esoteric art of coping with life with very little water. The ancient theory was that the animal had a convenient reservoir located in its hump, or humps, in which it stored supplies.
But this is not the case; to a large extent, the camel's secret lies in the great range over which it can allow its body temperature to fluctuate. Most animals can accommodate only a degree or two of deviation from their norm, but in the case of the camel, the core temperature of its body may be as low as 34C in the morning, only to rise to over 41 C during the heat of the day.
In addition, the camel can lose up to 30 per cent of its body weight by water loss, and still continue functioning effectively. And finally, if it oversteps the mark, a water deficit of 20 per cent of body weight can be redressed by its ability to drink more than 20 gallons of water in a mere 10 minutes.