30 PURCHASE OF CAMELS FOR MILITARY PURPOSES. 



Should we be forced to abandon our trip to Persia, we shall still 

 liave open to us Smyrna and the adjacent country, where. I am already 

 satisfied, we can procure an excellent stock of the burden camel. For 

 the dromedary, we must visit Beirout or Cairo. 

 Very respectfully, your obedient servant, 



HENRY C. WAYNE, 



Major U. 8. Army. 

 Hon. Jeff'n Davis, 



Secretary of War, Washington city. 



Constantinople, October 31, 1855. 



Sir: In accordance with my report of tlie 11th of October, Lieu- 

 tenant Porter and myself left this place for Balaklava the next day, 

 the 12th, in the British transport steamer, the Imperador, and landed 

 in the Crimea on the 17th. Calling on Major Ross, the deputy quar- 

 termaster general at Balaklava, and, further to the front, on General 

 Simpson, the commander of the British forces, we received from these 

 gentlemen kind welcome, and every facility for the prosecution of 

 our duty was promptly afforded to us. I was further fortunate in 

 receiving an introduction to Colonel McMurdo, in charge, under the 

 quartermaster general (General Eyre) of the land transport service in 

 the Crimea, and who, as quartermaster general to General Napier in 

 the expedition against Sinde, had used camels extensively for military 

 purposes. He gave me much interesting information in relation to 

 the military use of the camei, and from General Simpson also, who 

 had served in the same expedition under General Napier, we had ad- 

 ditional accounts of the value of the animal, and of the favorable 

 opinion entertained of it by the army, for the services it was capable 

 of rendering. The engagements of Colonel McMurdo were such that 

 I could occupy but little of his time, and in consequence obtained from 

 him only a few material facts without going into details. My thanks 

 are due to him for the moments he devoted to me, pressed as he was 

 with the many and various duties of his position. 



We found in the Crimea both the Bactrian or two humped camel, 

 and the Arabian or one humped ; but the latter alone seemed to be 

 used for the purposes of military transportation. The former were 

 found in the Crimea at the commencement of the war ; the latter 

 were carried there since, from Asia Minor. The former were but 

 little thought of; the latter were highly esteemed; the only objections 

 to them we heard of being the room they occupied in the narrow 

 streets, and their, frightening the horses. The two are very distinct 

 species of the same genus, differing from each other as much, I should 

 say, as the buffalo of our western prairies does from the common ox. 

 Doubly humped, the Bactrian is a strongly built, powerful animal, 

 standing not quite so high as the Arabian, of coarser and more shaggy 

 coat, slower in motion, but capable of carrying immense burdens. 

 From the formation of its back (its two humps) there is a difficulty in 



