714 CAMELS WITH SOUTH AFGHAN EXPEDITION, 1878-9. 
decidedly stands a proper selection of animals for the duty 
by due supervision at the point of starting. It will be 
remembered that at Quetta I found twenty-six out of seventy 
dead camels only two years old; these would have been at 
once rejected by an inspector at Sukknr, and their lives 
saved; they were evidently unfitted for a campaign, in con¬ 
sequence of juvenility; it is possible, also, that others might 
have been found absolutely unfit from want of the condition 
necessary, and so saved from going through the useless 
ordeal; some might have been, and probably were, diseased 
at starting. (£.) Enforcement of duty on the part of the Ser- 
wans; their carelessness, cruelty, ignorance, and wilful neglect 
were most conspicuous. Surely some efficient means of 
discipline might be found with regard to them, so that we 
should not have had the animals fed at haphazard; not have 
allowed their prejudices to interfere with the camel, who, 
sometimes almost dying with thirst, attempted, when 
crossing a stream, to take a draught of water, but was 
dragged on by that painful peg and cord through the nostril; 
that we should not have had them refusing to move their 
charges about at Abdulla Khan instead of allowing them to 
lie and freeze for forty-eight hours, nor should we have had the 
food sometimes withheld altogether. That these men were 
too indifferent to report an invalid unable to carry a load; 
that they loaded indiscriminately; threw down the gram to a 
number at a time, when the strongest ate too greedily (as in 
one instance at Quetta, when bhoorah had insinuated itself 
into the air-tubes of the lungs and caused suffocation) and the 
weaker were robbed of their share; and that they were 
allowed to maltreat (to murder would be the correct term) in 
order that they should get compensation, and be themselves 
released from attendance, is notorious, (o.) One officer per 
regiment detailed to see that such abuses were not per¬ 
mitted, and to look to the well-being of these animals 
generally, would take an interest in his work, and such an 
arrangement would be welcomed, I know, by all commanding 
officers, for is not the efficiency of their transport of para¬ 
mount importance ? Was not the lack of it a constant source 
of anxiety in the Afghan campaign, and are not some of our 
reverses at the Cape attributable to deficiency in this par¬ 
ticular ? That supervision will preserve these animals was 
abundantly proved by the fact that few of the camels 
carrying the baggage of officers were lost, because they found 
it so necessary to look after them themselves. In making 
the suggestion of an officer being entrusted with this duty, it 
must not be understood that he requires special knowledge of 
