GENERAL REMARKS 333 



not do more than four long journeys at the outside ; 

 but I have done this purposely, so as to show the actual 

 difference between the two systems. 



Thus in four or six years, allowing for a deficiency 

 of trade, sixteen camels would pay off their original 

 cost. And with a first-class breed, eyen supposing fewer 

 journeys were made in the year, greater loads could be 

 carried, and about the same result arrived at. At the 

 end of this time the profit realised by the camels would 

 be quite double that brought in by the wagon ; to 

 say nothing of the heavy loss that would have been 

 incurred among the oxen ; whereas with care there 

 should be little or none among the camels an item 

 which would still further increase the earnings of the 

 latter. Besides, camels are long-lived, as we have seen, 

 so that in the ordinary course of events you would get 

 twenty years' work out of them. While with superior 

 breeds, with great care, you might expect from twenty- 

 five to thirty years. On the other hand, a bullock's life 

 up country, running the gauntlet, as he has to, of so 

 many risky diseases, many of them rapidly fatal, is 

 decidedly precarious, and on short rations and hard 

 work they do not on an average last much longer than 

 six or seven years, if so long. 



When we take into comparison the great advantages 

 of the Sawari over the horse and the baggager over 

 the ox in the country we have been discussing, it 

 seems impossible to hesitate in deciding on the intro- 

 duction of an animal which would be so valuable and 

 useful in its expansion and development. But I have 

 said enough. 



It might reasonably be asked why, in the face of 



