124 PURCHASE OF CAMELS FOR MILITARY PURPOSES. 



best place to get them ; the distance from there to California is nothing 

 like as great as a voyage from Smyrna to the United States, to say 

 nothing of the difference in time, and the suitableness of the climates 

 through which they pass. As an animal of burden, I do not think 

 they would answer as well as the Arabian camel or the " Tulu;" they 

 are a clumsy, lumbering beast, and are not at all trained in Asia Minor 

 to carry weights. Although I should judge from their powerful make 

 that they could carry more than either the "Arabian" or "Tulu," 

 their speed on a journey would not be more than a mile and a half an 

 hour, which they could likely keep up for ten hours without resting, 

 and carry all that time about one thousand pounds. While in the 

 "Crimea" I saw two of them attached to a small cart, which they 

 were drawing no doubt with very great ease, but the pace at which 

 they were travelling was very slow,\not more than two miles an hour,) 

 and one good horse would have done twice as much, with the same 

 cart, in the same time. I do not think they are at all suited to wagons, 

 although for moving heavy weights, for a short distance on wheels, 

 they would do very well. The female Bactrian is not known to the 

 south of "Tartary, the Black Sea : and the Casj)ian Sea;" and if it is 

 wanted to raise that breed in the United States, it will be necessary 

 to import them from the Amour river or thereabouts. 



It is customary to cover up the Bactrian in the rutting season 

 (humps and all) with a thick blanket, in consequence of which his 

 hair becomes closely matted together, and a thick felt forms all over 

 his body. When it comes off in the spring it leaves the body in flakes 

 of a yard square, very much resembling thick cloth. Nature has 

 made a very wise provision for the Bactrian, and indeed, for all camels, 

 for the moment the warm weather commences, their thick pea jacket 

 of fur or wool comes off entirely, leaving the body perfectly bare, but 

 before winter comes again the coat is out full and luxuriant, and 

 seems sufficient to protect them against the severest cold. On board 

 ship the Bactrians seemed to suffer with heat while their thick cover- 

 ings were on, and I had them removed ; a short time after which 

 their hair all came off and they seemed to be less restive, and improved 

 rapidly in appearance. When rutting they grow thin, and will not 

 eat much ; they nibble the whitewash off the beams and sides of th 

 ship, which seems to do them good ; when they do so it is because 

 they require salt, which must be furnished to them twice a week. I 

 found it necessary to keep them ironed on the fore legs the first day 

 or two, but after that time they became very tractable ; the most vio- 

 lent camels become very quiet the moment the ship is in motion, and 

 remain so ever afterwards. 



Among the camels bought at Smyrna were four fine Loks ; these 

 have all been trained as "Pehlevans," or wrestlers. Wresting 

 matches between camels being an amusement in which Turks take 

 great delight, although they sometimes get a fine animal maimed in 

 the sport. Many gentlemen keep them for no other purpose, and one 

 person in Smyrna kept twenty at one time, for the amusement of his 

 wife, who had a fondness for the sport. The camels are trained to 

 wrestling when quite young ; they exhibit great dexterity in throw- 

 ing their antagonists, and seem to take much pleasure in the fray. 



