258 THE CAMEL 



ficient subordinates, instead of management you obtain 

 mismanagement, and as a natural sequence the animals 

 suffer severely, and in no time are worked to death, or 

 are reduced to a state of utter helplessness. Without a 

 system you must expect to have inefficient officers and 

 useless drivers, and with these latter you cannot expect 

 to get anything else but indifferent work out of your 

 animals. An officer may be as smart, active, and con- 

 scientious as possible, and he may work like a slave ; 

 but if he is ignorant of transport work and of camels 

 and their ways, and equally so as to the management 

 of natives, it is terribly uphill work ; and should he 

 happen to be a determined, zealous fellow, just as he 

 has licked his rabble into shape and knocked a little 

 method into them the campaign is over, if it has not 

 ended long since, and the transport is no longer required. 

 I use the words licking and knocking vulgar though 

 they be intentionally, as it is the only way in which a 

 transport officer on service can infuse or impart any 

 system zeal or liking for the work he never can into 

 the class of men that he has to deal with. In each of 

 the expeditions that I have served I flatter myself that 

 before I had been long in contact with my drivers I 

 had managed to imbue a certain sense of awe into them 

 which was productive of good results work ; but were 

 I to relate how I set about to obtain these results, Exeter 

 Hall would look aghast. 



General Situated as we are at present no transport company 



ence per should consist of more than 400 camels, as this is quite 



enough for an inexperienced man to look after. I have 



nothing to say against the individual officers of our 



Army Service Corps, but in the days when the same 



