64 Australian Life 



that demanded by the teamsters, while delivery 

 was effected in one half the time. A train of fifty 

 camels with Oriental drivers provides a spectacle 

 more frequently associated with the oldest civil- 

 isation than with the youngest. Yet on the sandy 

 plains of the interior, under the cloudless skies 

 and burning Australian sun, it possesses nothing 

 of the incongruous. The ungainly beasts sway 

 along, each secured to its immediate neighbour 

 by a noose cord, which serves to keep the train in 

 line. The foremost camel of all, usually the hand' 

 somest and most serviceable beast in the train, is 

 gay with gorgeous trappings of silk, decorated 

 with swinging tassels and glittering coins and 

 shells. Perched on his back sits the Afghan 

 driver, in his blue coat and spacious white 

 trousers and crowned with a huge red turban. 

 Every camel has its load: sometimes a bale of 

 wool on either side, or it may be the cumbrous 

 parts of an instalment of machinery for some gold 

 mine far away in the solitudes; while with every 

 train may be found several animals burdened with 

 small iron tanks of water. The camels themselves 

 will go without water for five or six days, but 

 when it is obtainable will drink a surprising 

 quantity of the fluid without appearing to satisfy 

 their thirst. The camel is a welcome adjunct to 

 desert Australia, but the Australians take excep- 

 tion to the Afghan drivers for many reasons. Up 

 to the present, however, it has not been made 

 clear that the white man is able to manage a train 



