LOADING 179 



which was employed solely on fatigue work, was just 

 the same. I always had a party of these men to assist 

 me in loading my water convoy. Egyptian-like, they 

 were extremely noisy and lazy, and were more in the 

 way than anything else, so I used generally to get rid of 

 them, and do the work entirely with my Aden drivers. 



No. 3 Auxiliary Transport Company in the Nile cam- 

 paign of 1884-85 was a good instance of this, and I have 

 seen them take a whole day loading their camels, a task 

 that experienced drivers would have done in a fourth of 

 the time. On more than one occasion I was obliged to 

 assist them with men of my Transport Company, or they 

 would never have got off the ground. It was exactly the 

 same with No. 5 Auxiliary in 1882, but then I had the 

 assistance of a handful of men who knew something 

 about mules, otherwise we should have still been stuck 

 in the sand between Tel el Mahouta and Kassassin. 

 Even in the Afghan campaign of 1878-80, and in 

 other smaller expeditions, the want of knowledge of 

 loading shown both by British and native soldiers was 

 lamentable. 



Naturally enough, the whole security of a load, and Adjust- 



J J ment of 



to a certain extent that 01 the animal, depends upon load 

 the adjustment of the load, which itself, as a matter 

 of course, depends entirely on balance. If badly 

 slung the load will come off constantly, and damage 

 itself, or, what is even worse, it will either hang so 

 loosely, sit so unevenly, or shift and sway about so 

 awkwardly, as to impede and harass the animal in its 

 movements, as well as to bruise his. sides and legs, as 

 already pointed out. Too much care, therefore, cannot 

 be given to the correct adjustment of loads prior to 



N 2 



