THE CAMEL. 207 



THE CAMEL. 

 By J. H. Steel, A.V.D. 

 (Read at the Society's Meeting on 10 th July 1889.) 



In dealing Avith a subject so large and so interesting as the camel, 

 one hardly knows where to begin and where to leave off. It is 

 extraordinary how various estimates have been formed of his value. 

 Mahomed says of him that he is the greatest of all the blessings 

 given by Allah to mankind ; recent writers have represented him as 

 ugly, spiteful, unreliable at work, stupidly phlegmatic, malodorous, 

 and endowed with all the bad qualities under the sun; his very 

 virtues, especially steady endurance of excessive toil, being attributed 

 to want of sensibility and of even the faintest gleams of 

 intelligence. The songs of the Arab of the desert are about the 

 camel, as one of the most beautiful of created beings ; the remarks of 

 the British soldier and transport regimental officer about his bag'gao-e 

 camels are not suited to ears polite ! Who is right and who is wroug ? 

 We can have no hesitation in taking the side of the Arab. Still 

 there is some excuse for the recent military opinion on this subject, 

 because undoubtedly in the Soudan, along the Nile, and in 

 Afghanistan camel transport has not been a success, and the poor 

 beasts have died wholesale as a rule. The Russians in Central Asia, 

 the French in Algeria, and, recently, the Italians in Massowah, have 

 been quite as unsuccessful as we in our various campaigns as to 

 keeping their camels in health and efficiency. Individual officers 

 have solved the problem of how to keep camels at work, and prove 

 them valuable on a campaign; but our troops have most certainly 

 not been successful; however, surely, if overladen animals have not 

 their saddles removed for a fortnight, we cannot wonder to find 

 horrible sores on their backs; if animals remain ungroomed and tied 

 up in lines or on the march for months together, we cannot wonder 

 if they get mange in an aggravated form; and if animals get no food 

 nor water for a week, we cannot wonder that they at last fall and die 

 under their heavy burdens. To sum the matter up in a few words. 

 If men have iu war emergency suddenly to deal with an animal about 

 which they know nothing whatsoever, the animal must not be blamed 

 that the results are not altogether satisfactory. The knowledge of 

 the camel possessed by the untravelled Briton is easily summed up. 

 Firstly, he is certain that the animal is the "ship of the desert." 



