214 THE CAMEL 



a lavish amount of ill-treatment. The pain and irri- 

 tation the poor beasts must have suffered from the 

 rubbing of atrociously made saddles and badly balanced 

 loads, to say nothing of the worry from flies, dust, &e., 

 and of the extremes now of heat, now of cold, can be 

 better imagined than described. The parts which are 

 usually galled are the hips, hump, sides of chest, withers, 

 and loins, but of these the latter, I think, suffer the 

 most. The causes may be summed up as follows : 



(1) Ill-fitting and badly constructed saddles. 



(2) The rough and wretched material with which 

 the pads or panels were lined. 



(3) Likewise the miserable stuffing or padding of 

 the panels generally chopped straw which worked 

 into a fine dust and oozed through in a very few days. 



(4) The framework roughly and loosely put together, 

 so much so that it was hard work trying to keep the 

 saddles from falling- to pieces. 



(5) Constant and unavoidable changes from transfers 

 and deaths. 



(6) No time for refitting or repairing saddles. 



(7) Ignorance, inexperience, and carelessness in 

 loading. 



The misfit of the saddles, as will be seen from the 

 above, was due entirely to defective construction and 

 inferior material. When on the top of this patent ' sore- 

 maker ' a heavy load was shoved on anyhow, without 

 the slightest regard to balance or adjustment in most 

 cases too heavy in proportion to age, size, and strength 

 of the animal can it be wondered at that ' sore backs ' 

 were the result? The inexperience and ignorance of 

 the Europeans in charge and of the drivers who, in 



