PURCHASING 303 



a veterinary surgeon or competent transport officer 

 they are found to be too young, or too old, therefore 

 unfit for work in fact, totally useless. They are a 

 dead loss to the Government, for the natives who have 

 sold them have only done so to get rid of them. 

 Naturally they always sell their worst animals ; in 

 fact, the carrying tribes in India and the Soudan 

 are averse to selling, and if they buy at all which 

 I doubt they would only give a nominal price for 

 juveniles, while the older and worn-out ones only fetch 

 a mere song from the butchers, who convert them into 

 meat. One of the real reasons that breeders and owners 

 will not sell or hire to us on service is on account 

 of the enormous death rate among the camels, which is 

 a distinct loss to them in point of yearly revenue. 

 They are bound to lose by it either way, unless in 

 the latter case compensation was given them on the 

 death of each camel, which would be an immense ex- 

 pense, but the only way out of the difficulty. It was 

 only by giving liberal compensation in the case of loss 

 of camels that the French in Algeria were enabled to 

 cope with native prejudice against parting with their 

 camels. Besides this, they found it necessary (1) to 

 humour the headmen, (2) to make requisitions bear as 

 lightly and equably as possible on the different tribes, 

 (3) and to issue payments regularly without deductions. 

 But in spite of all these advantages they have never 

 overcome the native unwillingness. 



But this is by no means the worst feature of the The worst 

 question, for both in Afghanistan and up the Nile a 

 great many camels under three years, and even two 

 years old (and without their permanent teeth), which 



