THE CAMEL (DROMEDARY VARIETY. 127 
the army is three pounds of grain and twenty pounds of chaff; 
extra work, six pounds of grain; but with an army in the field, 
they are sometimes, of necessity, without either allowance. The 
camel people, who hire out camels, never give grain or chaff, but 
browse their camels after every day’s march ; and they are gene¬ 
rally in condition, i. e. comparative condition. What flesh they 
have is hard, but under fatigue they, of course, would not last so 
long in the field as the commissariat camels. A good camel with 
480 lbs. load will go four miles an hour. A good riding camel 
will go from Hissar to Delhi (108 miles) in eighteen hours, take 
two hours rest, and return to Hissar in eighteen hours more. 
The night before starting the camel is fed with six pounds 
of grain (pulse) and twenty pounds of chaff. Two hours be¬ 
fore starting two pounds of clarified butter, one pound of alum, 
and one pound of long pepper, is given, and repeated mid¬ 
way between Hissar and Delhi, where the camel is fed with 
six pounds of grain, and another dose of the butter, alum, and 
pepper. When the two hours’ rest are over, the express camel 
rider remounts, and, on arriving midway between Delhi and Hissar, 
on his return, gives another dose of butter, alum, and pepper, and 
arrives at Hissar in the thirty-eighth hour after he left it, and 
gives his camel grain, chaff, butter, alum, and pepper. Now this is 
upwards of five-and-a-half English miles per hour; consider, too, the 
climate is a tropical one. Contrast the powers of these animals, 
under these circumstances, with ruminant animals, under other 
circumstances, known to us all in Europe, and then wonder not that 
there are diseases, but not indeed among town cows. The camel 
there in a state of nature is subject to fever ( pokdar); the natives 
are aware that the disease is contagious, and separate the diseased 
from the flock: it is the same disease (the German pocken) all 
over the world. 
*** On the Importation of Cattle. —Dr. Joseph Sweeny, 
of Cork, in a letter printed in “The Mechanics’ Magazine” of 
a recent date, makes the following remarks on the “ London¬ 
derry ” catastrophe: “Cattle have been often suffocated in ships 
from want of proper ventilation.” 
In 1824 Dr. J. Sweeny proposed the method he now describes, 
stating that “ shippers of cattle would, no doubt, patronize vessels 
so provided with ventilation.” — Vide “ Morning Advertiser,” 
26th Dec., 1848. 
I have objected to cattle being put down in the hold, and still 
do so, though ventilated, as described, because ventilation does not 
entirely prevent fever; it only diminishes the malignancy. Take, 
for instance, horses, camels, cattle, sheep, in India: in many parts 
they are without shelter throughout the year, yet they have fever. 
