230 PUECHASE OF CAMELS FOR MILITARY PURPOSES. 



the camels with two humps, as these people have no other) which the 

 Kalmucks used to draw and carry their baggage, are animals whose 

 appearance frightens horses very much ; when they see them for the 

 first time they become excessively alarmed, and fly with precipita- 

 tion.* The Moscovites advancing, upon the occasion we have just 

 mentioned, to attack the Sweds, placed the Kalmucks with drome- 

 daries in front. As soon as the Swedish horses saw them, they be- 

 came frantic with fright, and broke their ranks ; upon which the 

 Moscovites fell upon them and succeeded in routing them." Drome- 

 daries bear cold as well as heat, for they are seen in immense caravans 

 traversing the mountains of Media in the coldest winters, when the 

 centigrade thermometer marks 25° below zero (13° below zero of 

 Fahrenheit.) At night they sleep upon the snow, and with the only 

 precaution of covering their heads with a hood of felt, they support 

 very well the extreme transitions of temperature, from the valleys 

 warmed by the sun, to the mountains covered with ice, which they 

 alternately traverse. 



There is a very interesting pamphlet, which, although it contains 

 nothing relating to military matters, furnishes information which 

 naturally finds a place here. This pamphlet, by Jacques Graberg de 

 Hemso, treats of a breed of dromedaries near Pisa, in Tuscany. One 

 of the most essential particulars related of them is that the vigor 

 which these animals of the Barbary stock have attained is analogous 

 to that of the northern races of Persia. It is, without doubt, to the 

 manner of raising these animals that this happy result is to be 

 attributed. In Tuscany, the young ones are never weaned until six- 

 teen or seventeen months old, which is the practice in the north of 

 Persia, where the race is infinitely more vigorous than in the south 

 of Persia, a country in which the want of resources compels the in- 

 habitants to wean the young dromedaries too soon. M. Graberg says 

 that these useful animals render very important services in "the 

 department of woods and forests," as beasts of burden, and that the 

 work of one of them is equal to that of two horses. Each of these 

 dromedaries carries a weight of 1,300, and sometimes 1,400 pounds 

 Tuscany, (about from 980 to 1,050 pounds avoirdupois,) and with 

 such loads never make less than three miles an hour, (about 3f miles 

 English.) General Carbuccia says, that when in the expedition of 

 Tiaret, under the command of General Marey-Monge, a corps of 

 dromedaries accompanied the expedition ; each of these animals car- 

 ried the enormous load of 200 kilogrammes, (about 440 pounds avoir- 

 dupois.) Now this weight is. not even the ordinary load of a 

 zembourek, which is 450 livres. (See table.) We find again, p. 28: 

 "■ According to what we have often observed, the large dromedary 

 carries five to six sacks of barley of 60 kilogrammes, (about 132 

 pounds avoirdupois,) each ; the medium sized four sacks, and the 

 smallest sized three sacks, without counting the weight of the driver, 



* There are horses which can never become accustomed to tlie sight of a camel. One of 

 my own horses, of pure Arab blood, was of this character. For six years that I rode him, I 

 had to be very careful whenever 1 had to pass through a street in which was a dromedary. 

 Without this precaution he would wheel about and run away. In the end I succeeded in ac- 

 customing him to them a little ; yet the sight of one always disturbed him ; he would sidle 

 along the walk and show much fear. 



