--- title: Just So Stories (Rudyard Kipling), 2: How the Camel got his Hump — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Just So Stories (Rudyard Kipling), 2: How the Camel got his Hump», a lesson of the books course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: When the world was brand new and the animals were just starting to work for Man, the Camel lived alone in t --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/75-justso-camel-hump/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Books](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/) / Just So Stories (Rudyard Kipling), 2:… # Just So Stories (Rudyard Kipling), 2: How the Camel got his Hump Lesson 75 of the books course of Mova's primary school: 20 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/books/75-justso-camel-hump/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/75-justso-camel-hump/0/) — When the world was brand new and the animals were just starting to work for Man, the Camel lived alone in the Howling Desert, munching thorns, and to everyone who spoke to him he said only "Humph!" - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/75-justso-camel-hump/1/) — The Horse, the Dog and the Ox each ask him to come and work like them, and each gets a "Humph!", so the Man makes the Three work double to cover for the lazy Camel, and they are furious. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/75-justso-camel-hump/2/) — The Djinn (a magic spirit) in charge of All Deserts finds the Camel admiring himself in a pool and warns him not to say "Humph!" again; the Camel says it anyway, and his back puffs up into a great lolloping "humph". - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/75-justso-camel-hump/3/) — The Djinn explains that the hump lets him work three days without eating, to make up for the three days he missed; the Camel joins the Three but has never caught up, and has never learned to behave. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/75-justso-camel-hump/4/) — The poem after the story turns it into a lesson for us: if we have too little to do we "get the hump" and go grumpy, and the cure is to get outside and dig. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/75-justso-camel-hump/5/) — The Camel lived in "a Howling Desert because he did not want to work", eating "sticks and thorns and tamarisks and milkweed and prickles"; "'scruciating idle" is short for "excruciatingly idle", terribly lazy. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/75-justso-camel-hump/6/) — On Monday morning the Horse came first, "with a saddle on his back and a bit in his mouth" and asked him to trot; the Dog came "with a stick in his mouth" to fetch and carry; the Ox came "with the yoke on his neck" to plough. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/75-justso-camel-hump/7/) — Each time the Camel said "Humph!" and the animal "went away and told the Man". - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/75-justso-camel-hump/8/) — The Man said the Three "must work double-time to make up for it", which made them "very angry (with the world so new-and-all)". - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/75-justso-camel-hump/9/) — They held "a palaver, and an indaba, and a punchayet, and a pow-wow": four words from different lands that all mean a meeting to talk things over. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/75-justso-camel-hump/10/) — The Camel came by "chewing milkweed most 'scruciating idle" and laughed at them. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/75-justso-camel-hump/11/) — A "Djinn" (genie) is a magic spirit from Arabian stories; this one travels "rolling in a cloud of dust", and calls the Camel "My long and bubbling friend" and "Bubbles", because camels grumble and bubble. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/75-justso-camel-hump/12/) — The Djinn warned, "I shouldn't say that again if I were you; you might say it once too often." - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/75-justso-camel-hump/13/) — The Camel's back puffed up "into a great big lolloping humph"; the Camel had done no work from Monday to Thursday, so he had missed three days. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/75-justso-camel-hump/14/) — The Djinn said, "You will be able to work now for three days without eating, because you can live on your humph." - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/75-justso-camel-hump/16/) — Real biology: a camel's hump is a store of fat, not water; when food is short the camel lives on that fat, and the hump goes floppy and small. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/75-justso-camel-hump/17/) — Real biology: camels can go many days without drinking because their bodies waste very little water, and a thirsty camel can gulp around a hundred litres in a few minutes. - [18](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/75-justso-camel-hump/18/) — Real biology: dromedary camels (Arabia, North Africa) have one hump and Bactrian camels (Central Asia) have two; people have kept camels to carry loads and give milk for thousands of years. - [19](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/75-justso-camel-hump/19/) — Real biology: camels really do eat thorny desert plants; their tough lips and mouths are not hurt by the thorns. - [20](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/75-justso-camel-hump/20/) — The poem says the cure for the hump "is not to sit still, / Or frowst with a book by the fire" ("frowst" = laze in a stuffy warm room), "But to take a large hoe and a shovel also, / And dig till you gently perspire" (sweat a little). - ← previous: [Just So Stories (Rudyard Kipling), 1: How the Whale got his Throat](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/74-justso-whale-throat/) - next →: [Just So Stories (Rudyard Kipling), 3: How the Rhinoceros got his Skin](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/76-justso-rhinoceros-skin/) - ↑ back to [Books](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/books/)