The figurative name, the Ship of the Desert, is known, but not the opposite metonymy, by which the ship is called the Camel of the Sea: so too camels are called the Clouds of the Desert, and clouds, the Camels of the Sky.
-Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall, Das Kamel, 1834
When we looked up and saw neither clouds nor camels but rather contrails, KhairAllah would remark upon the Tayyara, Airplane, a word from the same root as Tayr, Bird, which sometimes would land on the camels’ humps to peck at their Rukāb, Riders, here meaning ticks.