THE SOLD IE RE CAMEL 
3°9 
of enduring hunger and thirst is greater, it carries 
double the load of two mules, needs fewer drivers, is 
never shod, and costs less to buy and less to keep ; for 
food and water have to be carried for miles in desert 
country, while the camel browses on almost any shrub, 
and can make the ordinary caravan march from well 
to well. 
This opinion must not rest on general considera- 
tions, for the good working example of the comparative 
efficiency of the two animals in a campaign is obtain- 
able. Lord Roberts, on his march from Cabul to 
Candahar, covered a daily average of fourteen and a 
half miles for nineteen days. This was done with 
mules and ponies, the camels belonging to the 
regiments being exchanged for the former. In the 
Bayuda Desert the camels travelled thirty-four miles 
daily in the first march ; and allowing for the two days’ 
rest and two of fighting, nearly thirty miles a day in 
the second march of two hundred miles. But in this 
case the camels were starved, and worked to death. The 
difference between the careful treatment of the cavalry 
horse — Marbot’s reminiscences of his life as a cavalry 
officer must have opened the eyes of many readers 
to the practical anxieties of that profession — and the 
ignorant neglect of the camel suggests a doubt whether 
the Englishman is really so adaptable as we are pleased 
to think. The two hundred pages which Major 
Leonard devotes to instruction in feeding, watering, 
loading, doctoring, equipping, and purchasing camels, 
contain so many “ glimpses of the obvious ” that the 
