Queer Methods of Travel 



695 



Photo and Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, Ne 



A Hill Country "Ekka" with Passenger and Baggage, India 



In all parts of that great line of deserts, 

 stretching from North Africa across Cen- 

 tral Asia to Northwest China, the camel 

 is everywhere in evidence ; the total num- 

 ber in the world being estimated at about 

 3 millions. 



Here, in the midst of these great water- 

 less areas, we see the camel in all the 

 varied types and in the variety of methods 

 of his utilization. How valuable this 

 strange and always weary-looking beast 

 is to the people of North Africa and Cen- 

 tral Asia can scarcely be realized until 

 you see him, as I have, actually perform- 

 ing his service, and realize that he is the 

 only beast of burden able to endure the 

 long marches across the desert. 



Costing about as much as a good horse, 

 his speed is equally great, his life con- 

 siderably longer, and his ability to carry 

 a load equal to that of three horses, while 

 the fact that he can travel for a week, 

 or, if necessary, nearly two weeks with- 

 out water renders him invaluable to those 

 great sandy stretches. He can also go 

 for several days with little or no food, 

 subsisting meantime upon the fat stored 

 in the humps on his back, which nature 

 seems to have provided as a storehouse 

 for sustenance in case of absence of food. 



Not only is the camel a valuable freight 

 carrier, but he serves as the travelling 

 car of the Rockefellers, the Carnegies, the 

 Morgans, and the Ilarrimans of the des- 



