PURCHASE OF CAMELS FOR MILITARY PURPOSES. Ill 



are liable to have ; the good condition of these two camels recom- 

 mended them to a butcher in Constantinople, who bought them for 

 purposes known only to himself. 



I sailed from Constantinople on the 22d of November, and after a 

 pleasant run of seven days anchored in the harbor of Alexandria, in 

 Egypt. Commodore Breeze, commanding the Mediterranean squad- 

 dron, came in port a day or two after us, and our consul Mr. DeLeon 

 (whose co-operation I was in hopes we would secure,) was called away 

 by his duties to Cairo, whither he went to accompany thee ommo- 

 dore. It was not possible to do much without the consul's assistance, 

 and we lost two weeks waiting for the " Congress " to sail, when Mr, 

 DeLeon would have leisure to attend us. 



Major Wayne proceeded at once to Cairo, but met with difficulties 

 there he did not anticipate, of which, no doubt, he has kept you in- 

 formed ; the consul returning to Alexandria with the commodore, his 

 services for the moment were not available. 



I received a message from Major Wayne, informing me that he had 

 been able to get a permit to take only four dromedaries out of the 

 country; " the viceroy refused to allow any more than that number 

 to be exported." His highness returning to Alexandria about that 

 time, I called on him, in company with Mr. DeLeon, hoping to be 

 able to remove his objections. I found him very averse to rescinding 

 any of his regulations on the subject of the exportation of animals of 

 every kind, but after Mr. DeLeon had explained to him the object of 

 the expedition, and expressed the disappointment that would be felt 

 by our government at such poor results from our visit to Egypt, he 

 consented to let us have ten dromedaries besides the four he had 

 already granted permission for. It was too late then to take advan- 

 tage of his courtesy. Major Wayne had been in Cairo a month and 

 returned the same day the permit was granted. To return to Cairo 

 to purchase ten dromedaries would require another month to be lost; 

 it was getting late in the season, and we had to purchase our Smyrna 

 camels; so we concluded to let the matter lie over for another year, in 

 hopes of meeting with better success another time. 



Dromedaries are not animals that can be bought in a day to advan- 

 tage; the finest kind are scarce in Cairo, and the ordinary ones are 

 not, in my opinion, worth the trouble of importing ; a well trained 

 dromedary, like a fine horse, has a strong hold on the affections of 

 his master, and it requires days and sometimes weeks, before a bar- 

 gain can be struck on anything like reasonable terms. Major Wayne 

 had the assistance of Mr. Heap, who has been indefatigable in the 

 duties he undertook to perform; and although the two were constantly 

 on the look out, they found but two very fine dromedaries for sale. 



These details are uninteresting, but they are necessary to account 

 for the time we have spent in carrying out your instructions, particu- 

 larly as you impressed upon us " that time was an important element, 

 and you wished us to be as prompt in the execution of this duty as the 

 security of the experiment would permit." In an undertaking of 

 this kind, and in carrying out an experiment all the details of which 

 were new to me, I should not consider myself justifiable in hurrying 

 over the matter. It is not an experiment that can be fully tested in 



