304 THE CAMEL 



were passed (or, what is more probable, had never been 

 inspected at all), were made to work. If this is not 

 going out of the way to be unjustifiably and unneces- 

 sarily cruel, I do not know what is. None of these poor 

 beasts did any real work, because from the very begin- 

 ning they were unfit, and they were very soon broken 

 down or killed. In the march from Sukkur to Can- 

 dahar in 1878, and in keeping up supplies on that side 

 during 1879, numbers of juveniles were worked; and it 

 is a fact that in some convoys 37 per cent, of the camels 

 were two years old and under three. In the march 

 from Korti to Metammeh a large percentage were 

 under four years old, and out of fifty camels that my 

 company got from the Remount Depot, which were 

 placed on the rearguard under the sergeant-major, not 

 one carried a load. They were all snippets between 

 two and four years old too young and too feeble. 

 There were no spare animals with the column except 

 these, so extra loads had to be placed on other camels 

 in order to supply the rearguard with a few spare 

 mounts ; and as a matter of course many of those which 

 carried the extra light weight succumbed. 



Cause of I do not attribute our failure of the transport in 



Afghanis- Afghanistan entirely to the Indian Commissariat or to 

 the lack of system on their part, but in a great measure 

 (1) to want of system generally; (2) to the Indian 

 Government, who did not give them timely notice ; 

 (3) to the fact that Sir Donald Stewart's orders were to 

 march to Candahar without delay. And although he 

 did not get ahead of his transport, as Lord Wolseley 

 did in 1882, yet he marched 400 miles in the depth of 

 winter, through a barren country, with a hastily impro- 



