CAMELS IN SOUTH AUSTRALIA. 315 



landing the camels commenced rapidly to increase, but an epidemic 

 attacked them, a kind of mange, by which disease more than 

 seventy were swept away. The Afghan drivers, some dozen in 

 number, who had accompanied their animals, stated that this 

 complaint was common to the camel in its own country, and that 

 it could be cured by means of oil extracted from certain shrubs. 

 But none of the requisite specific could be found in Australia, and 

 a grave objection to the importation of camels seemed likely to 

 present itself, for the sudden loss of so large a number at one fell 

 sweep was a serious matter. The luxuriant feed seemed to en- 

 courage the disease, and a remedy was looked for in vain. At 

 length it was proposed to apply Stockholm tar externally, and to 

 administer the same ingredient mixed up with oil internally ; and 

 the experiment was attended with the happiest effects, the Afghans 

 themselves pronouncing it far superior to the native medicines." 



About five years after their arrival we find Colonel Warburton 

 starting on his expedition, the first in which camels alone were 

 employed. Had it not been for these animals the undertaking 

 must have ended with disaster. On September 15th, when in 

 Western Australia, Warburton mentions that the master-bull was 

 very ill, as if poisoned, and the young bulls very troublesome in 

 consequence of the lessening of his restraint over them. They 

 tried to doctor him with mustard, but he had to be left behind at 

 the well next day. On the 18th Colonel Warburton says : — 

 " Obliged to abandon two riding-camels at our last camp ; they 

 could not stir. We at first thought they were poisoned, but it now 

 appears that they have been struck in the loins by the night wind. 

 My son's riding-camel is also struck ; it cannot drag its hind legs 

 after it, so we kill it here for meat instead of leaving it to die." 

 Later, on October 4th, he wTites of the loss of another camel : — ■ 

 " The former camels were struck in the loins, just as horses are 

 struck by the land-wind in India, but this one is diseased in the 

 hips, and quite lame." 



These records are of very great interest, for we find that, in 

 1866 or 1867, 121 camels of three types — the fast Mekrana camel, 

 the hill camel of Scinda, and the hairy camel from Candahar, i.e., 

 camels collected from various parts of India, were shipped from 

 Kurrachee, the very place from which the recent Port Hedland 

 camels were shipped. It is highly probable, therefore, that some 

 of these camels may have been suffering from trypanosomiasis 

 (surra). Some time after their arrival we find an epidemic, said 

 to be a kind of mange, attacking them, with the loss of more than 70. 

 The disease yielded to Stockholm tar applied externally and in- 

 ternally. Then we find Colonel Warburton using some of these 

 very camels, and that, towards the end of his journey, when 

 approaching the Oakover River, several of them, almost worn out 

 by hardship, the spiny spinifex grass {Triodia), and lack of water, 

 were " struck in the loins " by weakness, as Colonel Warburton 

 significantly adds, " as horses are struck by the land-wind in 

 India," and had to be abandoned. 



