THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION. 121 



I may field another advantage, which will be appreciated by all who 

 know the difficulty of conducting a caravan of mules or horses across 

 the plains. I mean the security from stampedes and other nocturnal 

 alarms and losses. The dromedary is a much less timid animal than 

 the horse or mule, and he is not sufficiently gregarious in his habits to 

 be readily influenced by a panic terror. The mode by which he is 

 confined at night furnishes a complete security against escapes from 

 fright or other causes. As he lies down, he folds the forelegs under 

 the body. The Arab passes a loop around one or both of the folded 

 limbs, above the knee, and secures the end of the cord around the neck. 

 When both legs are thus shackled, the camel can rise only to the knee : 

 if one only is hobbled, he rises with difficulty, and moves very slowly; 

 and if an Indian were to cut the loop, and thus free the animal, and 

 even succeed in mounting him, he would not be able, without a previ- 

 ous practice, which he has not the means of acquiring, to put him up 

 to such a speed as to elude pursuit.* There is another point which I 

 have never heard insisted on, but which has often struck me with some 

 force in riding the camel. I mean the greater range of vision which, 

 in a level country, the greater elevation of the scat gives the rider. 

 The eye of a horseman is upon an average scarcely eight feet above 

 the ground. Upon the dromedary it is two feet higher, and commands 

 a wider range accordingly. 



To all these advantages I am aware of no drawbacks but the ex- 

 pense of introducing the animal and experimenting with him, and the 

 difficulty of accustoming horses to the sight of him. The first objection 

 is too trifling to be debated in a case of so much importance ; and though 

 the latter has been found formidable in Tuscany, and according to 

 Father Hue, even in Tartary, where the camel has been very long in 

 use, yet it is of no great force as applied to the sparsely populated 

 regions of the Far West, and as the multiplication of the animal would 

 be gradual and slow, it is not likely that any great or general evil 

 would flow from this source. 



The facts I have recited seem to me abundantly to warrant the con- 

 clusion tliat at the least the experiment is worth trying, and it is highly 

 desirable that it should be tested on a scale large enough and varied 

 enough to embrace all the chances of , success. t 



For transportation, the choice would lie between the Turcoman 

 camel of northeastern Asia Minor and the Bactrian. The former might 

 easily be procured at Aleppo, and shipped at Alexandretta, or perhaps 

 betier at Trebizond, on the Black sea. The Bactrian, which seems 



* The only serious inconvenience attending the use of the camel in marching' through a 

 country inhabited by hostile Indians, is the necessity of allowing him to wander in search of 

 food; but as he habitually returns to camp before sunset, of his own accord, and never feeds, 

 and very seldom stirs during the night, he would require to be watched only for a couple of 

 hours during the whole twenty-four. 



t Very full information on the military qualities and the hygiene of the Arabian camel, 

 upon the dromedary regiment of the army of Egypt, and the use of this animal in war by the 

 ancients, may be found in the work of Carbuccia I have so often cited, and the papers of 

 Gourard appended to it. The title is : Du Dromadaire comme bete de somme, ft comme 

 animal de guerre; par le General G. L. Carbuccia. Paris, 1853. The appropriation made 

 by Congress for introducing the camel ($30,000) will prove hardly sufficient, it is to be feared, 

 for trying the experiment on a sufficiently liberal scale; and it is therefore doubly important 

 that advantage should be taken of the knowledge acquired by the French in their African 

 possessions. 



