WANTED! Click here for a bigger picture Butterfly is looking to replace this figure. Please e-mail if you can help.

For your favorite camel fan—
The scented camel-milk soaps from Oasis Camel Dairy make really nice hostess gifts.

Many years ago a dissatisfied horse asked the gods for longer, thinner legs, a neck like a swan, and a saddle that would grow upon him as a part of his body. Admiring all these separate appendages of beauty, the horse longed to incorporate them all within himself.

Straightaway the obliging gods changed him into a creature embodying all the new features. But, desirable as they had appeared separate, the entire assembly struck terror into the horse, for he found that he had been changed into an ugly camel!

"There now," said the gods, "you have been granted your wishes, and they shall continue with you all your life as a reminder to you that it is better to improve what you have than to wish for what you have not. A horse should be thankful for what he is."

I'm not sure exactly when I became a camel collector, or even entirely why. My first name is Camille, which perhaps had something to do with it—there was a period in junior high school when a few friends called me "Camel." Someone gave me a camel or two, and the nickname didn't stick but the collection did.

The camels in my collection have come from all over and been assembled over a period of nearly thirty years. Many were gifts... some people get t-shirts from their friends' travels; I get camels. Most were not expensive at the time they were purchased, although some have become "collectibles" by now.

One of these days, I hope to live in a home where there's room for the entire collection to be out on display. But for right now, my goal is to eventually display them all in virtual space via this web page.

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