CAMELS. 151 



the fact that he is a male living in a community of males and 

 permitting his passions to dominate him, particularly during 

 the Musth season. Were he made neuter, he would be just as 

 useful for military service, as has been proved, and even dachis 

 would be able to enjoy his society without any display of 

 unseeiningly behaviour. The more one is acquainted with him, 

 the more his merits appeal to one ; and I know no animal that 

 repays the kindness and considerate care bestowed on him by 

 his attendants and supervisors as he does. It is just this 

 attention which makes all the difference to him as a serviceable 

 animal. Were I a young man at the beginning of my career in 

 the Army, there is nothing I would like better than to have the 

 command of one or more Camel Corps, to prove the utility of 

 camels to the highest degree by rational treatment, and to 

 remove them from that Slough of Despond into which the 

 History of Wars clearly shows they have been plunged. It is, 

 I think, in many cases idle to talk about demerits of this animal. 

 Personally I do not altogether acknowledge them, as inefficiency 

 is not in the main inherent in the animal itself, but in point of 

 fact is the outcome of ignorance of animal function, injudicious 

 management, and circumstances inseparable from the conduct 

 of war. 



Reading' history of animals in war, one stands appalled at the 

 dead wastage of camels ; and if my remarks are strong, they are 

 only made so in the hope that the slate may be washed clean, 

 and that our future figures entered thereon may show better 

 reading. In my previous section entitled " Wastage of Animals 

 in War," I showed the enormous losses in camels that had been 

 experienced in various campaigns, and it is perhaps unnecessary 

 to refer to them again. At the same time it is important to 

 show that the virtues possessed by camels have been played 

 with, and that a misunderstanding of their nature and capacity 

 for work as animal machines lies to a very great extent at the 

 root of their shortcomings. 



It is very commonly supposed that a Camel is possessed of 

 phenomenal endurance, to fit in with which he is specially 

 endowed with a series of water cisterns in his stomach, and a 

 hump as a food store. In other words he carries his rations in 



