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 I'RHSKNTED TO THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 C, p. HUNTINGTON 
 
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 THE 
 
 USES OF THE CAMEL 
 
 CONSIDERED WITH A VIEW TO HIS INTRODUCTION INTO 
 OUR WESTERN STATES AND TERRITORIES. 
 
 A PAPER 
 
 UKAD BEFOUE THE AMERICAN UEOfiUAPIIICAL ANH STATISTICAL 
 SOCIETY, MARCH 2d, 1SC5. 
 
 BY 
 
 JOSEPH WAREEiST FABENS, 
 
 N0N-RK9IDENT MEMBKR OP THE SOCIETY. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 Carle ton. Publisher, 413 Broadway. 
 
 WASHINGTON, D. C. : FRA.NCK TAYLOR. 
 1865. 
 
THE 
 
 USES OF THE CAMEL : 
 
 CONSIDERED WITH A VIEW TO HIS INTRODUCTION INTO 
 OUR WESTERN STATES AND TERRITORIES. 
 
 A PAPER 
 
 READ BEFORE THE AMERICAN GEOGRAPHICAL AND STATISTICAL 
 SOCIETY, MARCH 2d, 1S65. 
 
 BY 
 
 JOSEPH WARREN FABENS, 
 
 NON-RESIDKST MEMBER OF THB SOCIETY. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 Carlcton^ Publisher^ 413 Broadivay. 
 
 WASHlNaTON, D. C. : FRANCE TAYLOR. 
 1865. 
 
 I 
 
THE USES OF THE CAMEL. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 
 
 The cession of California to the United States by the treaty 
 of Guadalupe Hidalgo, in 1848, was an event fraught with the 
 most important consequences to our country. It was one of 
 those events which mark eras in a nation's history. It gave to 
 us an uninterrupted stretch from ocean to ocean across the 
 finest parallels of the earth's surface. It opened to the imagin- 
 ation a new highway to the Indies, and foreshadowed the idea 
 of a continental domain where the world's last great empire 
 should sit enthroned. Yet its first promise, though grand, was 
 somewhat remote and obscure until illumined by the halo of 
 that wonderful discovery of gold which followed immediately 
 upon our occupation of its territory. 
 
 The effect of this discovery was not merely to infuse new 
 vigor, and a broader, hardier development into the American 
 character, and give a swift impetus to our national growth; but 
 it made our country, as it were, a centre to which was attracted 
 the migratory population of other lands. Circumstances 
 favored this end. An appalling famine was scourging Ireland. 
 Europe was rocking under political convulsions, and a great 
 tide of immigration, following the traditional path of empire, 
 was surging upon our Atlantic shores. The volume was easily 
 broken, for a long-continued influx of immigrants had at length 
 raised up a barrier against themselves, and a portion was swept 
 round to the Pacific. There, on those golden shores, where toil 
 and recompense went hand in hand, representatives of every 
 country in Europe worked side b}'' side with American citizens, 
 native Indians, Peruvians, Chilians, and the half-breeds of Mex- 
 ico and Central America. " The Australian joined them from 
 
THE USES OF THE CAMEL. 
 
 his continent in the South ; the Mahiy and Polynesian from the 
 isles of the Pacific ; while the Chinaman came forth like an 
 anchorite from his cell, built a temple for his idols in San Fran- 
 cisco, and joined in a concourse of human tribes such as the 
 world never before beheld." The mtri sacra fames was a fever 
 in men's blood— Cape Horn and Magellan were familiar as 
 household words. The narrow belt of the Isthmus of Panama 
 was thronged with an eager, straining multitude. Up against 
 the swift current of the often fatal Chagres river, under broiling 
 suns and drenching rains, they toiled. Along the Gorgona or 
 Cruces road, through mud, such as no army of the Potomac 
 ever dreamed of, they waded, and with unblanched cheeks they 
 faced the pestilence that stalketh at noonday. But that road, 
 which is to be the highway of nations, and which will be 
 worthy of its name — that path, where the traveller from the 
 farthest East, and the traveller from the farthest West, shall 
 meet and clasp hands; across the American plains, over the 
 Kocky Mountains, along the great central plateau, through the 
 gorges of the Sierra Nevada down into California — was un- 
 travelled, because unexplored — unknown. Here and there a 
 hunter or a trapper, — a few adventurous spirits, journeying, like 
 Abraham and Lot, westward with their flocks and herds, — these, 
 and the Indians whom we hunted to their inevitable doom, and 
 flying Mormons whom w^e hounded till they stood at bay, and 
 prospered in the wilderness and made the desert as the rose, 
 were all the sojourners in that magnificent land. 
 
 Years rolled away — ten short, busy years— and in the sumi- 
 mer of 1858, Greene Russell and a party of adventurers, follow- 
 ing up the Arkansas River, came to the country about Pike's 
 Peak, and there found gold. Here was another point of attrac- 
 tion, and the overland travel to Colorado began. Afterwards, 
 but at a long interval, came the silver discoveries of Arizona 
 and Nevada ; then the mineral discoveries of Idaho, Montana, 
 Utah, and New Mexico, flashing suddenly and brightly from hill- 
 side to hill-side, like the fires which bore tidings of Grecian 
 victory in old Homer's song— rather like the breaking of a new 
 day on the mountain-tops, coming from the west, and reversing 
 the order of the sun, and shedding over hill and valley and 
 rolling plain, " the light that never was on land or sea." 
 
 The line of travel has set in along this route, and needs only 
 
I 
 
 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. O 
 
 increased facilities to be increased a Imndred told. For these 
 lands that now, for the first time, have bared their lustrous 
 bosoms to the day, invite the settler with a health-giving climate, 
 a fertile soil, wood and water, and resources of pastoral agricul- 
 ture unrivalled on the globe. The Rocky Mountains, no longer 
 regarded as a barrier to separate the east from the west, are 
 recognized as the strong backbone, permeated with veins of 
 material power to hold the country together. A recent writer, 
 whom I infer to be ex-Governor Gil})in of Colorado, whose elo- 
 quent description of the parks of that territory we had the 
 pleasure of listening to in these halls last season, says : " The 
 amount of transportation between the Missouri River and Col- 
 orado, as the first point of entrance to the great mountain sys- 
 tem, is prodigious. The great plains represent the ocean 
 between the city of ISTew York and Liverpool. It is no uncom- 
 mon thing to see as many as five thousand wagon-teams in one 
 camp, and it is not setting the figure too high to say that at 
 least half a million of people are more or less interested or en- 
 gaged in this vast system of intra-continental transportation." 
 
 A daily line of stages is running, with tolerable regularity, 
 from Atchison to Placerville, California. The Mormons have 
 their trains ; and thousands of adventurers, apart from the above- 
 described travel to Colorado, with their own private convey- 
 ances, are pressing annually to the farthest west. Yet this 
 method of communication with our territories is slow and 
 difficult, and runs but over a narrow ribbon or two of soil. 
 The large portion of our western domain is yet untrodden by 
 the foot of civilization, inviting the explorer with its promise of 
 fresh fields and pastures new. 
 
 The Secretary of the Interior, in his last annual report to 
 Congress, says : " During the past year additional discoveries of 
 precious metals, particularly of silver, have been made in the 
 resrion flankino; on the eastward the extended mountain ranges 
 of the Sierra Nevada. Avast belt of some one or two hundred 
 miles in width, and eight or nine hundred miles in length, em- 
 bracing portions of Idaho, Nevada, and Arizona, is rich in 
 silver ore. Owing to the remote locality of these mines, and 
 the difliculty of transportation thereto, but little machinery 
 well adapted to the rapid and economical reduction of the 
 various ores has been introduced. In that portion of Nevada 
 
b THE USES OF THE CAMEL, 
 
 through which the Pacific Railroad will pass, many rich veins 
 have been found, and it is estimated, by persons familiar with 
 the subject, that if the mines now opened there were supplied 
 with the proper machinery, they would yield ten millions of 
 dollars per month. When we reflect that the region of country 
 in which deposits of the precious metals abound, includes large 
 portions of three States and six Territories, and that the richest 
 veins of ore heretofore discovered are as yet but slightly de- 
 veloped, while new discoveries are constantly being made, it 
 will be perceived that tlie annual product of the mines in tlie 
 United States must soon reach a magnitude without precedent 
 in the history of mining operations." 
 
 And asrain : — " The mines of New Mexico and Arizona are 
 
 CD 
 
 probably not inferior in richness to any within the limits of the 
 United States. Owing to their inaccessibility they are indiffer- 
 ently wrought ; all efforts to make them available must neces- 
 sarily be feeble, and attended with but partial success, until 
 roads shall have been constructed through those Territories from 
 the Atlantic States, or from the navigable waters of the Pacific. 
 The benefits resulting from such roads would not be confined 
 to the product of the mines. A new highway, at all times ex- 
 empt from obstruction by snow, Avould be open to the Pacific. 
 Passing by the valley of the Rio Grande to El Paso, it would 
 i-eceive a large portion of the rich commerce of Central and 
 "Western Mexico." 
 
 Here is food for consideration. The country teeming with 
 ■ precious metals, and gold at one hundred per cent, premium in 
 its great commercial mart! Kow, it must be evident to all, 
 that one of the principal means to be used for restoring the 
 national credit, and thereby putting the crowning cap-stone to 
 the nation's triumph over its enemies everywhere, is to facili- 
 tate emigratiun and cheaper transportation to the mining re- 
 gions. And as an adjunct in this movement, I respectfully pro- 
 pose the Camel. I do most earnestly believe, and it is a convic- 
 tion forced upon me after long study and observation of the sub- 
 ject, tliat the introduction of the camel into our western States 
 and Territories, on a scale of sufticient magnitude, will furnish a 
 cheaper, speedier, safer, more regular and reliable inode of 
 travel and transjiortation than any which now exists, or will be 
 substituted until the iron horse snorts defiance to all com- 
 petitors. 
 
domesticity and docility. 7 
 
 Domesticity and Docility, 
 
 The camel is presented to us from the beuMiuiiiig as the 
 friend and servant of man. He fitj;ures in the first catalogue of 
 domestic animals of which we have any record, and appears in 
 this domestic state to have been a birthday gift to man from 
 his Creator, In those primitive days, wlien the earth was fresh 
 from the hands of its Maker, and tlie uses of the several king- 
 doms, which God gave man for his inheritance, were best 
 understood, we find the camel to have been tlie most regarded 
 of all the animal creation; the compaiiion of his master in his 
 farthest Avanderings, as well as the denizen of his household and 
 the playmate of his children. When a wife Avas sought for Isaac, 
 the old servant of Abraliam fixed upon a regard for camels as 
 an appropriate mark by wliicli he would not fail to recognize 
 the maiden whom the Lord had destined for the favorite child 
 of his master. And how beautifully did the gentle Rebecca 
 answer to the test : " And when she had done giving him drink, 
 she said, I will draw water for thy cauicls also, until they have 
 done drinking. 
 
 "And she hasted and emptied her pitcher into the trough, 
 and ran again unto the well to draw water, and drew for all 
 his camels." 
 
 When Jacob was returning home, and wished to meet his 
 brother Esau upon friendly terms, he sent him, among other 
 presents, thirty milch camels with their colts. Then, as now, 
 on the long inland eastern routes the camel was the family con- 
 veyance ; Jacob in his travels, we are told, set his sons and 
 wives upon camels, probably several upon the same animal. 
 It is certainly no uncommon sight, at the present day, to see 
 half a dozen women and children huddled cozily a camel-back, 
 going to make a neighborly call on some cousins, perchance two 
 or three hundred miles distant. The appreciation of the camel 
 to kindness, in word or tone or touch, has, doubtless, much to 
 do in rendering him the favorite animal of the household, and, 
 indeed, causing him to be looked upon as an inseparable por- 
 tion thereof. The marabouts in Africa, when they enter a 
 house, invoke a blessing on the chief and on his wives, his chil- 
 dren and his camels ; and when they are sent to negotiate a 
 peace with a belligerent tribe, they preface their diplomatic 
 
8 THE USES OF THE CAMEL. 
 
 conference by a warning note, that as tliey, the belligerents, 
 treat the terms proposed, so shall they and their camels be dealt 
 with. The author of " An Excursion in Asia Minor" says : 
 " The care of the camels seems to be very much left to the 
 children. 1 have just watched a string stopping on an open 
 plain. A child twitched the cord suspended from the head of 
 the first — a loud gurgling growl indicated the pleasure of the 
 camel as it awkwardly knelt down, and the child, who could 
 just reach its back, unlinked the hooks which suspended from 
 either side the bales of cotton ; another child came with a bowl 
 of water and a sponge, and was welcomed with a louder roar of 
 pleasure as it washed the mouth and nostrils of the animal; 
 this grateful office ended, the liberated camel wandered off to 
 the thicket to browse during the day — and this was done to each 
 of the forty-five, which, all unbidden, had knelt down precisely 
 as the one I have described, forming a circle, which continued 
 marked during the day by the bales of goods lying at regular 
 distances. On a given signal in the afternoon, at about three 
 o'clock, every camel resumed its own place and knelt down be- 
 tween its bales, which were again attached, and the caravan 
 proceeded on its tardy course. 
 
 " I am not surprised at finding the strong attachment of these 
 animals to the children, for I have often seen three or four of 
 them, when young, lying with their heads inside a tent, in the 
 midst of the sleeping children, while their long bodies remained 
 outside." 
 
 " Oh, tribes of Sahara," saj^s an Arab song, " jon boast of 
 your camels, but know you, that they who would possess camels, 
 must know how to defend them." 
 
 The peculiar gentleness, the docility of the camel ; his plain- 
 tive voice ; his coaxing looks and gestures ; his " soft, woman- 
 ish ways," as Kinglake styles'them ; the fidelity with which he 
 clings to man, and the need which he seems to feel of his pro- 
 tection, excite those sentiments of pity which are akin to love, 
 even as his sturdier and more heroic characteristics challenge 
 our admiration. 
 
 The general kindness with which camels are treated in the 
 East, is of course not without many lamentable exceptions. 
 Woe to the unfortunate camel who falls sick on the road. The 
 hot iron or some fiery internal application is freely and merci- 
 
GEOGRAPHICAL RANGE. 9 
 
 lesslj applied, until the animal staggers on in sheer desperation, 
 or succumbs sullenly to his fate, I have seen Arabs belaboring 
 their beasts most cruelly because they hesitated to rise under 
 their heavy packs, perchance for the twentieth time, at the mere 
 whim of their drivers. Admiral Porter, who commanded the 
 " Supply" wlien the government camels were brought over in 
 that ship, says, that on one occasion, when a camel was slow to 
 rise, one of the natives in charge suggested pouring a bucket 
 full of scalding hot pitch over his back. Porter drylj^ observes 
 that he had no doubt of the efficacy of the application, as re- 
 garded the camel's getting up quickly, but he preferred a more 
 merciful method, which had the desired effect. Last summer, 
 having some camels to send by railroad from Marseilles to 
 Paris, I dispatched them from the ship to the station in charge 
 of an Arab, with instructions not to embark them until my 
 arrival. AVhen I got there I found one of the animals covered 
 with ropes, and six Frenchmen pulling away on them as for 
 dear life, to drag him into the cars. Of course the camel re- 
 sisted, and the six Frenchmen were getting the worst of it. I 
 ordered the ropes cut adrift, told the Arab to bring up a bag 
 of barley, wherewith in a persuasive manner he was to precede 
 the animals into the car. The camels at once saw the point of 
 the joke, and yielded gracefully to the suaviter in modo. 
 
 Geographical Range. 
 
 Nothing can be more erroneous than the opinion which com- 
 monly prevails with regard to the geographical range of the 
 camel. Because he is better adapted than any other animal to 
 certain local conditions, and, indeed, by his remarkable powers 
 of abstinence and endurance, has bridged over vast spaces of 
 the earth's surface, not otherwise penetrable by man, many 
 have inferred that, apart from these influences of soil and 
 climate, he would deteriorate and become comparatively use- 
 less. General literature fosters this idea, and associates the 
 camel exclusively with the hot sun, the shifting sands, and 
 waving palms of the desert. But the facts of the case destroy 
 this poetical illusion. The principal countries where the camel 
 has been in extensive use for centuries lie between the 15th 
 and 52d degrees of north latitude — the large portion being in 
 the north temperate zone. Johnson, in his Physical Atlas, 
 
10 THE USES OF THE CAMEL. 
 
 embraces in the camel countries the Canary Islands, Morocco, 
 Algiers, Tunis, Tripoli, the Great Desert back of those coun- 
 tries, and Egypt on the continent of Africa, Arabia, Asiatic 
 Turkey, Persia, Cabool, Beloochistan, Ilindoostan, Birmah, 
 Thibet, Mongolia, a portion of Siberia, and Tartary in Asia, the 
 Crimea, and European Turkey. 
 
 It will be seen that we have within these limits seasons of 
 the most intense cold as well as tropical heat. 
 
 In conversing with a venerable Arab, in Algiers, on the 
 subject of introducing camels into the United States, I suggested 
 the ]5i-opriety of purchasing the mountain breed, which are 
 used chiefly between the northern limit of the Great Desert and 
 the Mediterranean, where the climate does not vary much from 
 that of our "Western country. " By no means," said he ; " take 
 the desert camels. The animals that can stand extreme heat 
 can support equally well extreme cold." 
 
 Erman writes, under date of February 20th, and with a 
 temperature of twenty-five degrees of Fahrenheit below zero : — 
 "■ On the Chinese side (at Kiachta) we saw seventy fine camels 
 turned loose, and feeding on the frozen and withered grass. 
 They fear the severe winters of this climate as little as the 
 parching heat in the sand-steppes ;" and Marsh, our former 
 minister to Constantinople, now Minister at Turin, adds to the 
 foregoing: — ■ 
 
 " So numerous is the camel in these frozen realms, that 
 almost the whole commerce between Russia and China, by way 
 of Kiachta, is carried on by means of them, and they transport 
 merchandise over the vast distance between Orenburg on the 
 Ural, and Pretropawlowsk on the peninsula of Kamschatka. 
 In the month of October, Timkorski met on the desert of Gobi, 
 in latitude 46° north, and at the heie'ht of two thousand five 
 hundred feet above the sea, a herd of twenty thousand camels. 
 The Russian expedition against Khiva and Bokhara, in 1810, 
 employed more than an equal number, and Berghaus estimates 
 the number of camels in European Russia at not less than one 
 hundred thousand. 
 
 "Father Hue's lively narrative of his travels in Tartary is 
 full of similar proofs of the power of the camel to brave the icy 
 frosts and chilling blasts of that frigid region, and we may 
 reasonably conclude that he is able to endure the greatest 
 
FRUGALITY AND POWER OF ABSTINENCE. ll 
 
 extremes of temperature known in climates habitaljle by civil- 
 ized man." 
 
 The introducLion of the camel into Tuscany lias been a 
 marked success. They have multiplied from a few tliat were 
 brought from Upper Egypt, and now number several hundred. 
 They are used on the farm of the Grand Duke at Pisa, where 
 they do excellent service, re<piiring no food beyond what they 
 can gather for themselves by browsing among the pine barrens, 
 and are not housed during winter in the latitude of 43° 30' 
 north, where the climate is more trying than in our North- 
 western Territories. 
 
 The results of the experiments made with the camels in the 
 Zoological Gardens in London, and the Jardin des Plante8 
 and Jardin d' Acclimation, in Paris, have been equally grati- 
 fying. The camel-attendant in the London gardens told me 
 that the water frequently froze quite solid in the stables, but 
 the animals did not seem to suffer at all from the cold. He 
 considered them, indeed, less liable to be affected by change 
 of weather than the rugged coach-horse of England. 
 
 Jamrock, a famous dealer in animals in London, had six fine 
 camels in his stables last fall, which he told me he could not 
 find a market for in England. He said he had already sup- 
 plied the men of taste who fancied good animals ; that the 
 menageries were full ; and added that they would probably 
 remain so ; that camels were very hardy animals ; never died, 
 etc. He seemed quite gloomy about it. 
 
 Frugality and Power of Abstinence. 
 
 The characteristic which pre-eminently distinguishes the 
 camel from other animals of draught or burden is his frugality 
 and extraordinary power of abstinence. He takes kindly to the 
 coarsest grasses and shrubs, munching dry leaves, branches of 
 pine or cedar, thistles, and other prickly plants, with apparent 
 relish. It is not the custom of the Eastern tribes to feed their 
 camels. They subsist, for the most part, on what they pick up 
 on their travels, and when turned out to browse at night. 
 When herbage and browse are not to be had at all, or as an 
 encouragement at the bes-innino;, or solace at the end of a 
 journey, a few pounds of barley, or a few handfuls of beans or 
 dates are sometimes given ; but this is a rare ebullition of gen- 
 
12 THE USES OF THE CAMEL. 
 
 erosity, which probably astonishes the Arab who indulges in it 
 quite as much as the animal who is the amazed recipient. 
 "When stal)led in cities they are fed on hay and chopped straw, 
 and consume about half tl)e average allowance for a horse. 
 The fat of the camel, when he has any, goes to the hump. 
 This is his storehouse of nutriment, which he there secretes 
 when it is abundant, and reabsorbs when it is not found else- 
 where sutiicient for his wants. The first point that an Arab 
 jockey regards, in bargaining for a camel, is the external ap- 
 pearance of the hump. As that is full or shrivelled, so does he 
 estimate the condition of the animal. After long and tedious 
 journeys, the hump is often seen flattened to near the level of 
 the back. 
 
 Major Wayne, of the United States Army, in a report upon 
 camels, to the Secretary of War, dated on board the "• Supply," 
 April 10th, 1856, says : " Beyond this supplying with food by 
 reabsorption, the hump does not seem to be intimately connected 
 with the animal's vitality ; for Linant Bey informed me that he 
 had repeatedly opened, with a sharp knife, the humps of his 
 dromedaries, when from high feeding they had become so 
 plump as to prevent the fitting of the saddle, and removed 
 large portions of the fat, without in any manner injuring or 
 affecting the 2:eneral health of the animal." 
 
 Not only is the hump a store-house of solid nutriment, on 
 which the camel may draw ad libitum as long as it lasts, but 
 he is provided with water-tanks in his stomach, where he can 
 stow away his water for a cruise, like an outward-bound galliot 
 before the time of patent condensers. He has not only four 
 stomachs, but there is in one of them a kind of reservoir, formed 
 of cavities or cells, capable of holding several gallons of water. 
 And he is also fitted up with pumps like a ship, and can pump 
 the water up out of his tanks into his mouth, to moisten his 
 often dry and dusty food. Indeed, Cuvier supposes, and more 
 recent naturalists have accepted the theory, that this ancient 
 and honorable animal, who browsed about the grounds of the 
 first Pharaoh, is furnished with that triumph of modern im- 
 provements known as a patent condenser. His conjecture was, 
 that the stonu\cli of the camel is not only able to retain for 
 many days water swallowed by the animal, but that it possesses 
 the further power of secreting a special fluid for moistening the 
 
FRUGALITY AND POWER OF ABSTINENCE. 13 
 
 fauces and viscera, and minglinif; with the food in rumination, in 
 some such way as certain iish are able to keep the skin moist 
 for some time after they are taken from the water, by the 
 exudation of a fluid secreted for that purpose. It is even said 
 that tiie fluid found in the water-sac after the deatli of the 
 camel possesses chemical properties which prove it to he an 
 animal secretion. The Arabs affirm this to be the case, and the 
 French in Algiers seem inclined to acquiesce in this opinion. 
 
 General Carbuccia, of the French Army in Algiers, states 
 that " a dromedary, dying by accident, was afterwards opened 
 in the presence of several French officers. The reservoir ])re- 
 sented the appearance and consistency of a melon, and contained 
 more than fifteen pints of a greenish water of no had flavor. 
 The Arabs present declared that if it were allowed to settle for 
 three days it would become clear and drinkable. The French 
 tried it, and the Arabs were found to he correct in their state- 
 ments." 
 
 Now, with regard to the time that camels will go without 
 drinking, authorities dift'er, but all agree that his power of 
 abstinence in this respect is w^onderful. A French report of the 
 expedition to TAghouat declares that the camels of the corps 
 did not drink from February to May, though the weather was 
 hot ; and General Carbuccia, the commander of the corps, states 
 that the Algerine camel never drinks during the last two months 
 of autumn and the entire winter and spring. He adds : " At the 
 beginning of summer he drinks, and then abstains fifteen days ; 
 after having drunk again, he goes fourteen days without water, 
 then thirteen, then twelve, diminishing gradually his periods of 
 abstinence by a day, until he reaches the seventh day, after 
 which he drinks once a week, and not oftener, whatever may 
 be the heat or the fatigues of the journey." 
 
 Durham and Clapperton mention a case of eight days' entire 
 privation of water, with dry food. Burckhardt records an in- 
 stance of like abstinence of the same duration in the month of 
 August, and, in his " Notes on the Bedouins," he ascribes to the 
 camels of Darfur the power of dispensing with water for nine or 
 ten days, even when on the inarch. '* The Tibboos and other 
 tribes, who constantly traverse the Sahara, are very confldentlv 
 affirmed to possess camels which can support a privation of 
 fifteen days without serious inconvenience. I have myself," he 
 
14: THE USES OF THE CAMKL. 
 
 continues, " witnessed in Arabia Petrea an instance of complete 
 privation for four days, in very hot weatker and with dry 
 fodder." Major Skinner declares that the camels of his caravan 
 did not drink between Damascus and the Euphrates (from the 
 3d to 23d of April), though water was offered to them on the 
 tenth day of his journey. Tavernier's camels, on one occasion, 
 were nine days without water, and Russell mentions a case of 
 abstinence for fifteen davs. A neighbor of mine in Salem, 
 Massachusetts, Colonel Miller, formerly collector of the port, 
 kept a camel in his stables for a winter, which passed a con- 
 tinuous period of six weeks without drinking. The camels 
 that I brought from Africa the past season did not taste water 
 from the time of their shipment at Algiers until they were 
 landed from the railroad cars at Havre. I led them to a trough 
 at the station of the Mediterranean road in Paris, but they 
 merely snuffed up its cool fragrance for a moment, and then, at 
 the word of command, stopped gayly off across the boulevards. 
 Neither did they drink at all during their voyage across the 
 Atlantic to New York, embracing a period of twelve days. 
 " Ships of the land," in sooth ! The gallant old steamship 
 " New York" w' as not more independent of the Croton and the 
 water-tanks of Southampton than were my stanch clippers, 
 '•Biskra" and "Luled." 
 
 SHIPS OF THE DESERT. 
 
 There be some hair-splitters who have objected to this time- 
 honored appellation of ''ships of the desert," contending that 
 the simile would not be likely to occur to the Arabs, who are 
 not navigators, and averring that the word which we translate 
 "ship" means simply wagon or vehicle. However this may be, 
 there is a peculiar fitness in the simile of the ship, as many of 
 us who have experienced feelings similar to sea-sickness on 
 riding for the first time a caniel-back might perchance unwil- 
 lingly admit. The camel, as we have seen, before setting out 
 on a journey, provisions himself for a voyage ; and even as a 
 ship, guided by human intelligence, finds its way over the 
 watery waste, so does he, with unerring instinct, lay his course 
 direct from oasis to oasis, finding a path where all is pathless 
 across the broad-lying sands of the desert. To see a caravan 
 going out of the city gates laden with precious freight, the 
 
SPEED AND ENDURANCE. 15 
 
 camels, witli heads erect, already scenting the pure air of the 
 offing, their drivers* gayly singing, or shouting ftirewell to the 
 friends they leave behind, stirs the blood like the sight of a 
 gallant ship, its deck alive with cheery mariners, its sails belly- 
 ing in the breeze, as, with creaking spars and straining rigging, 
 it bows its head before the freshening blast, spurning the slavish 
 waters of the shore, and leaping to the freedom of the sea. 
 Again, in your travels on some bright, sunshiny morning, you 
 behold them, with their white awnings spread, coming up above 
 the distant horizon of the plain, swinging and rolling across the 
 intervening expanse, and bearing majestically down upon you, 
 for all the world like a homeward-bound Eastlndiaman running 
 before the wind from Good Hope down to St. Helena. Then, 
 wlien they arrive in port, and their cargoes are discharged, no 
 awkward floundering or lying on their side to rest, as other 
 animals do, like a ship stranded or hove out when she is a hulk 
 and not a ship, but, doubling their limbs under them, they 
 come down handsomely fore and aft, and so lie, gallantly swing- 
 ing at their anchorage, moored stem and stern, like a frigate in 
 the Downs. 
 
 Yet it must not be supposed that it is all plain and prosper- 
 ous sailing on these seas of sand. Eastern people are proverb- 
 ially improvident, and, in case of accident, are soon on sliort 
 allowance. Sometimes springs dry up in the desert, and cara- 
 vans stray in search of others till they are lost. Sometimes all 
 provision fails. Sometimes the fatal simoom strikes them. Then 
 shipwrecks occur in those vast solitudes, as was the case with a 
 Syrian caravan of three thousand camels and six hundred men 
 which perished in 1858, near Hara Iji Sheham. " It was bound 
 from Damascus to Bagdad, and lost the way. No Bedouin 
 happened to be within reach, and a tribe came upon their 
 remains long after their death." If any of their number put 
 off on fleet beasts in search of aid, as boats sometimes do from 
 sinking ships, they, too, perished by the way. No fated bark 
 ever went down, amid the loneliness of ocean, under more 
 helpless circumstances, or amid surroundings more awful and 
 sublime. 
 
 SPEED AND ENDURANCE. 
 
 The camel unites in himself the two sterling qualities of 
 speed and endurance. It is incorrect to suppose that the drom- 
 
16 THE USES OF THE CAMEL. 
 
 edaiy or running camel is of a different species from the ordi- 
 nary burden camel. He differs only in b^ing of purer blood, 
 finer organization, and superior training; as the race-horse dif- 
 fers from the dray-horse in our streets. The ordinary pace of 
 the burden camel with full pack, when driven regularly, is from 
 three to five miles an hour, which they will keep up for twelve 
 hours on a stretch, and go for twenty or thirty days without 
 showing signs of fatigue. Some writers afiirra that they do 
 better than this, while others place their performances at a 
 lower rate. It would not be fair, however, to measure the ani- 
 mal's capacity by what he actually performs in the East. The 
 Orientals place little value up(m time, and have a disjointed, 
 shuffling habit of travelling, allowing their beasts to browse 
 along the road, and stopping at all sorts of odd times, and on 
 the most trivial pretences, in a way that would be quite irk- 
 some to our go-ahead race. Nevertheless, as express-riders or 
 mail-carriers, or when any sudden emergency compels them, 
 they scour the country with astonishing rapidity, and perform 
 feats that seem almost incredible. 
 
 The speed of the dromedary or running camel is established 
 beyond question. The Hebrew word for dromedary is Mrka- 
 routh, which means " a swift beast," and is so translated in 
 Isaiah, 6Gth chapter and 20th verse. When David fell upon 
 the Amalekites, we read that " there escaped not a man of 
 themj save four hundred young men, which rode upon camels 
 and fled." 
 
 In 1811 Mahomet Ali, when hastening to destroy the Mame- 
 lukes, rode the same camel from Suez to Cairo, eighty-four 
 miles, in a single night. Marsh states that a French officer in 
 the service of the Pacha repeated the same feat in thirteen 
 hours, and that two gentlemen of liis acquaintance have per- 
 formed it in less than seventeen without a change of camel. 
 Laborde made the journey in the same time, and went from 
 Alexandria to Cairo, nearly one hundred and fifty miles, in 
 tliirty-four hours. Colonel Chesney rode with four dromeda- 
 ries from Baarah to Damascus, nine hundred and fifty-eight 
 and a half miles, in nineteen days and a \'ew hours (more than 
 fifty-four miles per day), the animals having no food but such 
 as they picked up on the desert. They averaged from forty- 
 four to forty-six paces per minute, with a length of step of six 
 
SPEED AND ENDUKANCE. 17 
 
 feet five inches. Mails have been carried from Bagdad to 
 Damascus, four hundred and eighty-two miles, in seven days ; 
 and, on one»occasion, by means of regular relays of dromeda- 
 ries, Mahomed Ali sent an express to Ibrahim Pacha from 
 Cairo to Antioch, five hundred and sixty miles, in five days 
 and a half. Colonel Chesney says the swift dromedary can 
 make eight or nine miles per hour, and accomplish seventy 
 miles a day for several days in succession. Buckhardt, in his 
 " Travels in Nubia,'' states that the owner of a fine dromedary 
 laid a wa^er tliat he would ride the animal from Esneh to 
 Keneh, and back, a distance of one hundred and twenty -five 
 miles, between sun and sun. He accomplished one hundred 
 and fifteen miles, occupying twenty minutes in crossing and 
 re-crossing the Nile by ferry, in eleven hours, and then gave 
 up the wager. Buckhardt thinks this dromedary would have 
 travelled one hundred and eighty or two hundred miles in 
 twenty-fours without injury. The interesting paper extracted 
 from the notes of General Harlan, and printed in the United 
 States Patent Office Report of 1853, states that the ordinary 
 day's jourriey of the dromedary of Cabool is sixty miles, but 
 that picked animals will travel one hundred miles a day for 
 several days in succession, their greatest speed being about ten 
 miles an hour. 
 
 A French writer in the lievue Orientcde says: 
 
 "' I knew a camel-driver who had bought a dromedarj' be- 
 longing to a sheriff of Mecca lately deceased at Cairo. This 
 animal often made the round trip between that city and Suez, 
 going and returning, in twenty-four hours." The distance from 
 Cairo to Suez, as I have already stated, is eighty-four miles, 
 making one hundred and sixty-eight miles travel in twenty- four 
 hours. 
 
 In an appendix to the work of General Carbuccia, by Jomard, 
 we find that a detachment of the celebrated dromedary regi- 
 ment, in the French army of Egypt, marched from Cairo to El 
 Arish, from El Arisli to Suez, from Suez to Cairo, and from 
 Cairo to Pelusiura, a distance in all of not less than six hundred 
 miles, in eight days, and he states that the ordinary day's march 
 of the regiment was thirty French leagues, or about seventy- 
 five miles, w^ithout a halt. 
 
 Abd-el-Kader compares the pace of the dromedarv to the 
 2 
 
18 THE USES OF THE CAMEL. 
 
 noble pace of the ostrich ; and also speaks of him as rivalling 
 the gazelle in fleetness. He says that the Bedouin of the desert 
 gives his horse camel's milk to drink to stimulate him in the 
 race, and adds that a man, by drinking it exclusively for a con- 
 siderable length of time, acquires such swiftness of foot as to 
 compete successfully with the horse in running. 
 
 " When you shall meet a mahari," or swift camel, says an 
 old Arab proverb, " and shall say unto his rider, Salem Aleik, 
 ere he shall have answered you Aleik Salem, he will be afar off' 
 and out of sight, for his fleetness is as the wind." 
 
 A waiter in Chambers' Journal says he has seen the camel 
 in Northern India move off' at the rate of eighteen miles an 
 hour with a piece of light artillery at his heels ; and he adds, in 
 another place, that his usual gait is from twelve to thirteen 
 miles an hour, but that on being pushed he will readily knock 
 off' his eighteen to twenty miles wuthin the/ same period. 
 
 The author of Eothen speaks of ten to twelve miles an hour 
 as the ordinary jog-trot of the dromedary, and says he can keep 
 it up for three days and nights, without food, water, or repose. 
 
 An Arab chief wdiom I met in the grain -market at Blidah, 
 gravely informed me that General Yusuf, commander-in-chief 
 of th« native forces in Algeria, had repeatedly driven a pair of 
 dromedaries before a wagon from Blidah to Medeah, a distance 
 of twenty-four miles, in half an hour. He explained that the 
 general tied a handkerchief over his mouth, and wore goggles, 
 and had his ears stuft'ed with cotton-wool, and so got over the 
 road very well. I said nothing by way of comment, but as 
 this dignilied chieftain haughtily declined a cigar which I 
 off"ered him, on the ground of his not using the weed, and I 
 afterwards detected him smoking an old stump which I had 
 thrown away, I came to the conclusion that if he did not ex- 
 actly prevaricate, he might, as a man of business, have added a 
 handsome per centage to the truth. 
 
 The Bedouin who came with me from Africa in charge of my 
 camels, tells me that he has often travelled faster a camel-back 
 than the highest speed yet attained on the Northern New Jer- 
 sey railroad ; and this I will not gainsay. 
 
 Burden Capacity. 
 
 The special usefulness of the camel is found in his capacity of 
 bearing burdens. The Hebrew word gamal, which we trans- 
 
■BURDEN CAPACITY. 19 
 
 late camel, means literally hearer. He is sometimes used for 
 draught, as in Egypt for ploughing, and British India for drawing 
 heavy ordnance, and some have conjectured that, with a suita- 
 ble harness, he would make a very serviceable draught animal. 
 But nature seems to have designed him especially for the ])aek 
 or saddle. The Arabs say that he is born ready harnessed fV>r 
 his work, with his pack-saddle on, in the shape of his hump of 
 fat, gristle, leather, and thick, soft hair. They certainly have 
 added but little to the natural arrangement. The artificial 
 pack-saddle is made by stuffing a bag eight or nine feet in 
 length with straw or hay, sewing the ends together, and fitting 
 it round the hump. Over this is placed a primitive frame-work 
 of some kind of hard wood, composed of two pieces about 
 eighteen inches each in length, disposed in the shape of an 
 inverted V in front, and two other similar pieces behind the 
 humj) ; these are connected and kept in place by two cross 
 pieces at the bottom, of some three or four feet in length. The 
 whole is dovetailed together and tied with strips of leather. A 
 sailor, with his palm and needle, and skill in splicing, would 
 turn out the whole affair complete at an hour's notice. The 
 frame nestles into the pad, which finds a secure footing in the 
 soft hair round the hump, and only a loose rope, by way of 
 girth, is required to keep the whole in its place. 
 
 The camel begins to carry burdens at four years of age, and. 
 if properly treated, will maintain his usefulness to forty. The 
 weight which they can carry varies somewhat, according to the 
 species and condition of the animal. The ordinary pack for a 
 full-grown camel in Algeria is from three hundred to four hun- 
 dred kilogrammes, which, with the weight of the pack -saddle and 
 driver's luggage, is equivalent to from seven hundred to nine 
 hundred pounds. I have often seen camels walkins: under 
 much heavier loads, and to this is to be added the weight of 
 the driver, who walks and rides by turns, as the fit is on him. 
 Among some camels imported into Texas, a few years ago, was 
 one that would rise and walk under a burden of nineteen hun- 
 dred pounds. Even this extraordinary feat has been beaten, 
 as I understand, by one of the Government camels, now in Cali- 
 fornia, which has carried a pack of two thousand pounds for 
 fifty miles in a single day. The camels in the Canary Islands 
 carry an average pack of one thousand pounds, but their journevs 
 
20 THE USES OF THE CAMEL. 
 
 are of course short. Those employed on the Grand Duke's 
 farm, in Tuscany, carry seventeen hundred pounds, Tuscan 
 weight, equivalent to twelve hundred pounds English, and 
 w^ork regularly under this pack from sunrise to sunset. The 
 statements as to the loads carried by camels in Egypt, Euro- 
 pean Turkey, Arabia, and other parts of Asia, vary from four 
 hundred to fifteen hundred pounds. The usual load of the 
 cotton-carriers in Persia is one thousand pounds. 
 
 A French nobleman, the Duke de Luynes, has recently trans- 
 ported on camels, from Jaffa to the Dead Sea, the compartments 
 of a small iron steamer, which he has there set afloat, much to 
 the horror of the Bedouins, who regard it as Satan's last mani- 
 festation on those accursed waters. This is an item which our 
 minincr friends will do well to make a note of. 
 
 The patience and cheerful perseverance exhibited by the 
 camel under his wearisome packs is truly something to admire. 
 You see him coming into town, from a journey, it may be, of 
 weeks, his back bending under his burden, yet striding im- 
 periously through the narrow streets, with head erect, swaying 
 gently to and fro, and calm philosopliic eye, and face tranquil 
 as the unworldly sphinx, as if really the heavy load on the 
 other side of his long neck were borne by some other animal 
 than himself, with whose affliction he could not possibly be 
 expected to sympathize. 
 
 It is to be considered, in perusing the statements of travellers 
 as to the ordinary camel-load in far Eastern countries, that these 
 loads are somewhat modified by the fact that the commodities 
 thus transported are usually of the most precious and costly 
 character. The long journeys which they make, and the neces- 
 sarily high cost of freight, preclude tlie carrying in this way of 
 common fabrics and the life-sustaining grains. These are not, 
 as a rule, articles of international traffic, but are raised and 
 manufactured in the countries where the}^ are consumed. 
 Camels coming into Algiers from the desert usually bring 
 valuable dyestuffs, fine wool, camel's hair, rich skins, tobacco, 
 palm-oil, ostrich-feathers, ivory, and gold-dust. There's a glow 
 of wealth, an odor of spicery, and a fiashing of jewels about 
 these camel-freights ever since the time when Joseph's brethren 
 lifted up their eyes as they sat at meat, " and looked, and behold 
 a company of Ishmaelites came from Gilead, with their camels 
 
BURDEN CAPACITT. 21 
 
 bearing spicery and halm and myrrh, going to carry it down 
 into Egypt." In Isaiah's prophecy of the blessings in store for 
 the Gentiles, he 'says: "The multitude of camels shall cover 
 thee ; the dromedaries of Midian and Ephah, all they from 
 Sheba shall come, they shall bring gold and incense, and they 
 shall show forth the praises of the Lord." Again he says: 
 " They will carry their riches upon the shoulders of young asses, 
 and their treasures upon the bun(-hes of camels." 
 
 The arrival of a caravan, " laden Avith treasure," is exquisitely 
 painted by Longfellow, in the " Kalif of Baldacca" : — 
 
 "Into the city of Kambalu, 
 By the road that leadeth to Ispahan, 
 At the head of his dusty caravan, 
 Laden with treasure from realms afar, 
 Baldacca and Kclat and Kanahar, 
 Rode the great Captain Alau. 
 
 " The Khan from his palace window gazed ; 
 
 ITo saw in the thronging street beneath, 
 
 In the liglit of tlio setting sun that blazed, 
 , Through the clouds of dust by the caravan raised, 
 
 The flash of harness and jewelled sheath, 
 
 And the shining scymitars of tlio guard. 
 
 And the wear}- camels tliat bared their teeth. 
 
 As they passed and passed through tbe gates unbarred 
 
 Into the shade of the palace yard." 
 
 Equally good is that sumptuous ballad of Don Fulano, de- 
 scribino; the Cid's entry into Valencia, after his victory at 
 Abelfueda, and slaying the five Moorish kings : — 
 
 "With dripping sword and horse all sweat he rode into the town, 
 The black gore from his plume and flag was raining hotly down ; 
 His mace was bent, his banner rent, his helmet beaten in : 
 The blood-spots on his mail were thick as spots on leopard's skin. 
 
 "And after came the hostages, the ransomed and the dead — 
 The cloven Moors in wagons piled, the body or the head; 
 And heaps of armor, golden-chained, gay plumes and broken flags, 
 Piled up as in the tanner's yard, or heaps of beggars' rags. 
 
 " Then stately camels, golden-trapped, each silver-white as milk, 
 Rich laden with the aloes-wood, soft ambergris, and silk ; 
 Rich Indian camphor, martin-skins, fi-oin Khorasan the fair; 
 Ten piles of silver ingots, each a Sultan's triple share. 
 
22 THE USES OF THE CAMEL. 
 
 " Great bales of orange safiron-weed, and crystal diamonda clear; 
 Large Beja rubies, fiery red, such stones the Emirs wear. 
 Last came the shekels and the bars, in leather bags sealed red, 
 And then black slaves, with jars of gold upon each woolly head." 
 
 SADDLE AND FURNITUEE. 
 
 The riding-gear of the dromedary is somewhat lighter and 
 more elegant, but otherwise of similar construction to the pack- 
 saddle. Some tribes have adopted the Moorish pattern, which 
 is in the form of a bowl with stirrups, two of which they attach 
 to the frame-work and pad of the Arab saddle, one before and 
 one behind the hump. The baggage of the travellers is swung 
 across midships. The forward seat is occupied by the servant 
 or driver, who occasionally rests his feet upon the camel's neck 
 by way of a change ; and the after, wdiich may be styled the 
 quarter-deck, is the seat of the master. 
 
 The family arrangement is altogether different. A pair of 
 stout wooden frames is slung over the pack-saddle, somewhat 
 resembling straight-backed chairs, in which, protected by awn- 
 ings, ride the high-born dames. Another contrivance is a pair of 
 wooden boxes, furnished with cushions of lion or leopard skins, 
 about four feet in length and two in width, usually surmounted 
 with a stylish awning, supported by posts at the four corners, 
 and another rising from the centre of the saddle. These awnings 
 have side-curtains, or perhaps lattices, through which the Mus- 
 sulman women catch glimpses of the outer world. You occa- 
 sionally meet a whole family, not indeed so large as Solomon's 
 or Brigham Young's, cuddled together under one of these moving 
 tents. There is also the camel-litter, which is nothing more or 
 less than an Eastern palanquin, borne by two camels harnessed 
 before and behind to its long shafts. This conveyance, in-which 
 half a dozen may comfortably ride, is only used for invalids or 
 noble families. 
 
 CAMEL-KIDING. 
 
 You do not vault into the saddle of your dromedary after the 
 chivalric manner of horsemen. The performance, if less grace- 
 ful, is often more laughable, and I cannot describe it better than 
 by quoting from a lively writer in an old number of the American 
 Whig Review, who saith : — 
 
 " But the dragoman is sounding ' boot and saddle,' after his 
 
CAMEL-RIDING. 33 
 
 fashion ; our camels are laden, our dromedaries are waitinc^, not 
 indeed champinjr the bit and pawinji; the ground like iierj 
 coursers, but, with half-shut eye, lazily ' chewing the cud of 
 sweet and bitter fancy.' Let us mount our ungainly steeds and 
 away to the desert. 
 
 "The camel, as everybody knows, kneels to receive his load 
 and his rider, and the burden he can rise with is said to be the 
 measure of what he is able to carry. The Bedouins often climb 
 to the saddle without bringing the camel to his knees, or even 
 stopping him, by putting one foot on the callus of the l-cnee, 
 and so clambering up by the neck and shoulder ; but I l-ecom- 
 mend no such experiments to you. You will find mounting 
 in the ordinary way ticklish enough in the beginning, and you 
 run considerable risk at first of going off by a very illogical a 
 priori, or a posteriori movement, as the animal rises. It is a 
 bad eminence to fall from, and until you have had considerable 
 practice in this sort of slack-rope exercise, it is good to hold 
 fast by the saddle-pins, both fore and aft, while the dromedary 
 is unfolding his joints and working his traverse upwards. 
 Further, see that your attendant keeps one foot on your camel's 
 knee until you are well posited and balanced, for he is apt to 
 start up on feeling the weight of his rider, and in this case you 
 may very likely go up on one side and come down on the 
 other. "When all is ready, you give the signal, your x\rab re- 
 leases the camel, a sudden jerk from behind pitches you upon 
 the pommel as he raises his haunches (for, as w^e have told you 
 before, he comes up stern foremost), and then a swell from the 
 stem throws you aft, and so on zig-zag until he is fairly up, 
 when, after a little more rolling, while he is poising attd steady- 
 ing, backing and filling, and getting his feet into marching 
 order, he steps ofl:', and you are at last underweigh on your 
 quest for Mesopotamia, Arabia Petrsea, or the oasis of Jupiter 
 Ammon." 
 
 Once on the road, you feel a sense of security in your lofty 
 seat that is quite encouraging. You have no fear that he will 
 stampede on hearing the shriek of a locomotive, or an organ- 
 grinder entertaining the community with the tu4ie of " Sweet 
 Home." If he should happen to stumble and fall, which is a 
 very unusual occurrence, he comes down slow and sure, and 
 does not immediately afterwards threaten your brains or your 
 
24 THE USES OF THE CAMEL. 
 
 bread-basket by any playful indulgence in light gymnastics 
 witb his heels. As for shying, as a country horse will do at a 
 yellow dog, or at a lawyer with his green satchel, he rather 
 merits, on the contrary, the encomium bestowed upon the horse 
 that you remember Mr. Winkle was to ride once upon a time. 
 
 "Shy," said the 'ostler, " vy, bless -you, sir, he vouldn't shy, 
 if he vas to see a 'ole vagon-load o' monkeys a-comin' dotVn the 
 street vith their tails shaved oif." 
 
 The gait of the camel, from its ])eculiar jerking motion, is at 
 first disagreeable to most persons, but you soon become accus- 
 tomed- to it, after which the exercise, and the refreshing purity 
 of the air, at so great a height from the ground, operate as an 
 exhilarating tonic. A camel-ride of days — not of hours — is 
 always a pleasant experience to look back upon. Travellers 
 invariably refer with delight, and sometimes with the greatest 
 enthusiasm, to their journeys a-camel-back. 
 
 And this — though apart from a strictly economic view of the 
 subject — is an important consideration ; the pleasure to be 
 derived, and the vigorous health to be acquired, by a system of 
 camel-riding. Genuine camel-riding I mean — not as we stiffen 
 up our nautical nerves by a trip from the Elysian Fields, round 
 the light-ship, and so back to New York — but camel-riding, 
 day after day, for a succession of days — a trip to Colorado or 
 Salt Lake, or down to Albuquerque, or Santa Fe. It would 
 do us good. I think it might become fashionable. Americans 
 need a little change of this sort. They are too much in the 
 sugar and cotton line, as Halleck says. They deal too exclu- 
 sively with the inanimate forces of nature for their own real 
 comfort, tl el ving in mines, going down into wells after oil, put- 
 ting steam into harness to ride behind it, and otherwise shame- 
 fully abusing it. They need a little more of that life in the 
 open air that gave Winthrop his bounding pulse, and made 
 him none the less a patriot for that. Glorious chap. What 
 an outrageous flow of spirits was on him when he struck Bos- 
 ton Tilicum in the backwoods of Oregon, and they had coffee 
 and crisped bacon for supper, and toasted doughboys in ridicu- 
 lous abundance ! 
 
 "Three thmgs," says Abd-el-Ivader, "give vigor of body and 
 joy of lieart — air, exercise, and the aspect of things external." 
 Hear Kinglake on this subject: " To taste the cold breath of 
 
IMPORTATION INTO THE UNITED STATES 25 
 
 the earliest morn, and to lead or follow yonr bright cavalcade 
 till sunset through forests and mountain passes, through val- 
 leys and desolate plains, all this becomes your Mode of Life ^ 
 and you ride, eat, drink, and curse the mosquitoes, as system- 
 atically as your friends in England eat, drink, and sleep. If 
 you are wise, you will nut look upon the long period of time 
 thus occupied by your journeys as the mere gulfs which divide 
 you from the place to which you are going, but rather as the 
 most rare and beautiful portions of your life, from which may 
 come temper and strength. Once feel this, and you will soon 
 grow happy and contented in your saddle-home." 
 
 " It is so sweet to find one's self free from the stale civilization 
 of Europe ! Oh, my dear Ally, when first you spread your car- 
 pet in the midst of these fresh scenes, do think for a moment of 
 those of your fellow-creatures that dwell in squares and streets, 
 and even (for such is the fate of many) in actual country 
 houses — think of the people that are ' presenting their com- 
 pliments,' and ' requesting the honor,' and ' much regretting' 
 of those who are pinioned at dinner-tables, or stuck up in ball- 
 rooms, or cruelly planted in pews ; aye, think of these, and so, 
 remembering how many poor devils are living in a state of 
 utter respectability, you will glory all the more in your own 
 delightful escape." 
 
 Importation into the United States. 
 
 When we reflect on the eminent usefulness of the camel in 
 the East, and the vast numbers that there contribute in various 
 ways to man's comfort and support, it appears, at first sight, 
 matter of surprise that he has not hitherto been introduced to 
 any general extent upon this continent. All the great nations 
 of the old world, possessing wide tracts of unoccupied or thinly- 
 settled country — the Chinese, Tartar, Persian, Russian,' Arab, 
 Turk, and Egyptian — use the camel. Some of these have used 
 him from the beginning ; but none that have once enjoyed his 
 services have manifested any subsequent disposition to forego 
 them. On the contrary, in Russia, European Turkey, and 
 Western Africa, the uses of this valuable animal are becoming 
 daily better appreciated and more widely extended. In Al- 
 geria, where the French have constructed magnificent roads at 
 enormous expense, the camel remains the favorite means of 
 
26 THE USES OF THE CAMEL. 
 
 transportation. Tlie Casbali is in ruins, and " the civilizing 
 flag of France" waves from its topmost remaining turret ; only 
 the site where stood the pirates' lookout, whence the Algerines 
 were wont to signalize the appearance of a strange sail in the 
 offing to their confederates in tlie port below, is now pointed 
 out to the traveller ; for the pirate's occupation is gone. The 
 caves and holes in which burrowed tlie swarthy Moors, and the 
 dark alleys through which they stealthily crept in their daily avo- 
 cations, have given place to spacious blocks of houses and broad 
 boulevards ; but the Arab still comes from the mountains and 
 the desert on his camel as of yore ; his stately caravans, laden 
 with precious freight, still make trafl&c through all that wide 
 domain, and his proud conquerors have not disdained, in this 
 particular, to follow in his footsteps. 
 
 America had no original domestic quadruped but a species 
 of elk, the llama tribe, and, to a certain extent, the bison or 
 buifalo. The horse, the ass, the ox, the sheep, the goat, and 
 the hog, were brought over by the early settlers. The indis- 
 pensable benefits we have derived from their introduction, 
 domestication, and large increase in our country, are recognized 
 by all. Yet the camel is a more useful animal, more hardy, and 
 will bear ocean transportation better, than any of these other 
 animals. 
 
 This latter point is well established by the testimony of Por- 
 ter, Wayne, Heap, and many others ; and my own experience 
 in the shipment of animals for many years has led me to the 
 same conclusion. 
 
 Use in Texas and Overland. 
 
 That the camel finds himself at home in the local conditions 
 of our climate and soil, and does not deteriorate, but rather 
 improves in health and vigor by a change of domicil, has been 
 thoroughly demonstrated by the result of the experiments made 
 by the United States Government, in 1855, '56, and '57. 
 
 The report of Captain Beale, of the United States Army, to 
 the Secretar}^ of War, of an overland trip with camels, carrying 
 seven hundred pounds each, from Texas to California, in 1857, 
 is very full and satisfactory; but I do not happen to have it by 
 me to quote from at this time. 
 
 The following extracts are from the official reports of Major 
 
USE IN TEXAS AND OVERLAND. 37 
 
 Wayne, dated respectively September 24tli, and Kovember 5th, 
 1856, and February 21st, 1857, and will be found sufficiently 
 comprehensive and conclusive : — 
 
 " On the 28th of Angiist I sent down six camels, under ray 
 clerk, Mr. Eay, to San Antonio, for oats, in company with three 
 wagons from this post (Camj) Yerde, Texas). The camels 
 could, as it turned out, have gone down leisurely in two days, 
 but, governed in their movements by the wagons (though they 
 were empty), they went down in three, the wagons being re- 
 strained in their march by the want of water along the route. 
 On Monday, September 1st, Captain McLean, assistant quarter- 
 master at San Antonio, sent back the camels to me at 12 m., 
 with 3,048 pounds of oats, an average of 608 pounds to each 
 animal. At 6 r. m. on Wednesday, the 3d of September, the 
 camels were again in this camp, and had delivered their loads, 
 having travelled leisurely, and with much less weight than they 
 could easily have transported. On Tuesday, September 2d, the 
 wagons were returned by Captain McLean at 12 m. On Sat- 
 urday, September 6th, they arrived in camp at 12-^ p. m., only 
 one wagon carrying 1,900 pounds, and the others averaging 
 about 1,800 pounds ; the loads that experience has taught can 
 be safely transported in them over this rough and thinly-settled 
 country. From this trial, it will be seen that the six camels 
 transported over the same ground and distance the weight of two 
 six-mule wagons, and gained on them 42^ hours in time. Re- 
 member, moreover, that the keep of a camel is about the same 
 as that of a mule (if any difference, it being rather in favor of 
 the camel, as it eats no more, and ruminates like a cow), and 
 that there is no heavy outlay for wagons, harness, etc. (the only 
 equipment being a very rude pack-saddle, that can be made by 
 the cam el-clri vers themselves), and you will have all the data 
 necessary for a comparison of the two methods of transportation 
 just related. ****** 
 
 " On Saturday night, October 4th, and Sunday morning, it 
 rained in San Antonio heavily, Avetting the roads deeply, and 
 making them muddy and boggy. Wagoning through such 
 mud is lal)or lost, for the viscidity of this soil is such that it 
 packs firmly on the wheel, and as with each revolution a new layer 
 is taken up, the tire and felloes soon become incased in a thick 
 
28 THE USES OF THE CAMEL. 
 
 coating of pressed earth, rendering traction slow and painful. 
 Travelling in such roads, with any thing like a load in a wagon, 
 is out of the question. This condition of the road offered an 
 opportunity for another test, — the travelling of the camel in 
 muddy weather, — not contemplated by me when the caravan 
 left, but which the information and sagacity of Mr. Ray at 
 once embraced. Packing light loads upon the camels, he took 
 advantage of a temporary cessation of rain, between 12 m. and 
 1 p. M., on Sunday, the 5th of October, and commenced his 
 return to camp. The rain continued with sliglit intermissions, 
 but generally coming down in torrents, throughout Sunday 
 night and the succeeding Monday and Tuesday. On Tuesday 
 evening, October 7th, the caravan reached camp at Y p. m., 
 and delivered 3,800 pounds of oats, and a few miscellaneous 
 stores that it had transported, the state of the roads having 
 impeded but little its progress. Experienced, disinterested 
 persons said, at the time, that loaded wagons could not have 
 travelled in such weather." 
 
 ******* 
 
 " We have camels that for short distances will easily transport 
 twelve and fifteen hundred pounds, yet never but in one 
 instance has there been put upon them more than about six 
 hundred pounds. The exception referred to was during my 
 stay in Indianola, and within the first month or six weeks after 
 landing. Needing hay at the camel-yard, I directed one of the 
 men to take a camel to the quartermaster's forage-house and 
 bring up four bales. Desirous of seeing what efi'ect it would 
 produce upon the public mind, I mingled in the crowd that 
 gathered round the camel as it came into town. When made 
 to kneel down to receive its load, and two bales, weighing in 
 all 613 pounds, were packed on, I heard doubts expressed 
 around me as to the animal's ability to rise under them ; when 
 two more bales were put on, making the gross weight of the 
 load 1,256 pounds, incredulity as to his ability to rise, much 
 less to carry it, found vent in positive assertion. To convey to 
 you the surprise and sudden change of sentiment when the 
 camel, at the signal, rose and walked off with his four bales 
 of hay, would be impossible. It is sufficient to say that I was 
 completely satisfied. I would have put on two more bales — 
 about 1,800 pounds — but four bales were sufficient for my 
 
MILITARY SERVICES. 29 
 
 purposes, and the animal had no particular effort (objection- 
 able after so long a sea voyage) to make under them." 
 
 Military Services. 
 
 Although traditional!}' a peaceful animal, lacking those fiery 
 attributes which Job bestows upon the war-horse, yet has the 
 camel occasionally rendered distinguished service in military 
 movements. They have been used for centuries by the Per- 
 sians in tlieir wars against the Turks. Our officers who visited 
 the Crimea, in 1855, found them highly appreciated by the 
 British, who had previously used them in India for cavalry ser- 
 vice. The operation of the famous dromedary regiment, organ- 
 ized by the first Napoleon in Egypt, was a brilliant success; 
 and the recent experiments of the same nature in Algeria, are 
 said to have resulted in a manner entirely satisfactory to the 
 officers in charge. Whether they can be advantageousl\' sub- 
 stituted for, or used in connection with, the horse in the regular 
 military operations of our army, is an open question ; but there 
 is no doubt that, as an armed escort, they will render good ser- 
 vice in protecting our overland trains from Indian depreda- 
 tions. 
 
 "There are few more imposing spectacles,-' says Marsh, 
 " than a body of ^nned men, advancing under the quick pace 
 of the trained dromedary ; and this sight, with the ability of the 
 animal to climb ascents impracticable to horses, and thus to 
 transport mountain howitzers, light artillery, stores, and other 
 military materiel into the heart of the mountains, would strike 
 with a salutary terror the Camanches, Lipaus, and other savage 
 tribes upon our borders." And he thus sums up his qualifica- 
 tions for martial rank, which it will be seen are equally valua- 
 ble to him as a beast of burden. 
 
 " Among the advantages of the camel for military purposes," 
 he says, '' may be mentioned the economy of his original cost 
 as compared with the horse or mule, when once introduced and 
 fairly domesticated — the simi)licity and cheapness of his saddle 
 and other furniture,' which every soldier can manufacture for 
 himself; the exemption from the trouble and expense of pro- 
 viding for his sustenance, and from dressing, sheltering, or 
 shoeino; hiui ; his wreat docilitv, his general freedom from dis- 
 ease, his longevity, the magnitude of his burden, and the great 
 
30 THE USES OF THE CAMEL. 
 
 celerity of his movements ; his extraordinary fearlessness ; the 
 safety of his rider, whether from falls or the viciousness of the 
 animal ; the economical value of his flesh, and the applicability 
 of his hair and 'skin to many purposes of military use or con- 
 venience ; the 'resources which in extreme cases the milk might 
 furnish, and, Anally, his great powers of abstinence from both 
 food and drink." 
 
 Adaptability to our Far West. 
 
 It would be idle now to speculate as to what would have 
 been the effect on our civilization, if Columbus, when lie sailed 
 from Cadiz for Santo Domingo, on the 25th of September, 1493, 
 on his second voyage of exploration, taking with him horses, 
 cattle, and other domestic animals wherewith to stock the 
 New World, had taken some camels also. With the increased 
 facilities they would have afforded us for a larger development, 
 might we not have become more of a pastoral people — less 
 seltish and greedy of gain, taking more liberal and comprehen- 
 sive views of human affairs ? Might not our country have been 
 more fully explored*, and to an extent settled, and farther ad- 
 vanced towards its sublime destiny ? And what would have 
 been the effect on the Indian question ? Should we have used 
 the camel exclusively to hunt that stricken antl decaying people 
 more swiftly to their death ; or would he have been, on the other 
 hand, a civilizing element in their midst, winning them by his 
 morale to more useful and tranquillizing pursuits, a means of 
 utilizing rather than exterminating them I 
 
 All the local conditions and influences of our Western coun- 
 try indicate most unmistakably the camel as its appropriate 
 denizen. Take a map of the world on the Mercator projection, 
 and you will see that the parallels on which he is used to the 
 greatest extent, and to the best advantage in the Old World, 
 are precisely those on which we propose to employ him in the 
 New. The great geological, climatic, and topographical features . 
 of the eastern and western parallels are sufficiently similar. 
 Both on the Great Plains which form the eastern slope of the 
 Eocky Mountains, embracing nearly the entire valley of the. 
 Rio Grande, and extending northward beyond the northern 
 boundary of the United States, and in the Great Basin of the 
 interior, between the Eockys and the Sierra Nevada, there are 
 
ADAPTABILITY TO OUK FAR WEST. 31 
 
 large tracts of country closely resembling the deserts of Africa 
 and Arabia. None of our mountain passes are more rugged or 
 steeper, or more subjected to the obstacles of snow and ice, 
 than those of China, Tartary, or northern Africa. Some have 
 suggested that the greater Inunidity of portions of our con- 
 tinent, giving more of an alluvial character to the soil, would 
 be found objectionable. Mud is always an impediment to 
 travel, but I think the extracts which I liave read from Major 
 Wayne's lieports show that the camel is by no means thrown 
 hors de combat from this cause ; at all events, we may safely 
 affirm that even under these conditions, least favorable to his 
 character and capacity — ^wliich are, by the way, the exception 
 and not the rule — the camel will be found to possess many ad- 
 vantages over tlie loaded team as a means of tranb})ortation. 
 
 That this useful and valuable animal has not hitherto been 
 introduced into our continent, may be attributed partly to the 
 fact that our population has been made up almost exclusively 
 from peoples not familiar with the uses of the camel — the over- 
 flow, as it were, of the denser countries of Western and Central 
 Europe. No great territorial nation has sent us any contribu- 
 tion to speak of; and, besides, our previous requirements may 
 not seem to have imperatively demanded the use of any other 
 means of conveyance than those which we found ready pro- 
 vided to our hands. But with the gold discoveries in California, 
 and the subsequent discoveries of the precious metals in our in- 
 land Territories, the aspect of the case is changed : other and 
 better facilities are called for, and must be had. In this view 
 of the question, I think I hazard little in repeating a prediction 
 which I made in a work published in Boston in 1851, that '" the 
 camel will yet be domesticated and bred in our Western States 
 and Territories as the horse, the mule, and the ox now are, and 
 will doubtless do more towards extending the outskirts of our 
 civilization than all other appliances to boot." 
 
 There, in the golden wake of sunset, lies the peerless West, 
 offering us with lavish hand her priceless treasures. There she 
 stands like a queen, flushed and proud, arrayed in garments of 
 silver with ornaments of gold, waiting to be crowned with the 
 glory of human population, like Memnon's statue in the wilder- 
 ness, waiting for the dawn of human industry to become musical 
 with its hum, Macaulay, at the close of his essay on " Mitford's 
 
32 THE USES OF THE CAMEL. 
 
 Greece," with a touching sadness that partakes of the sublime, 
 suggests the possibility of a coming period, " when civilization 
 and knowledge shall have fixed their abode in some distant con- 
 tinent, and the sceptre shall have passed away from England ; 
 when, perhaps, travellers from distant regions shall in vain 
 labor to decipher, on some mouldering pedestal, the name of 
 her proudest chief; shall hear savage hymns chanted to some 
 misshapen idol over the ruined dome of her proudest temple, 
 and shall see a single naked fisherman wash his nets in the 
 river of ten thousand masts." 
 
 This is the poetical foreshadowing of a fact already in pro- 
 cess of being accomplished. A great continental empire is 
 growing up here, with the Rocky Mountains for its massive 
 and towering centre. Let us follow up the fancy of Macaulay 
 and divest it of its gloom. Let us imagine some future traveller, 
 standing upon our topmost central peak, gazing on either hand 
 upon the wide expanse of mountain, valley, and broad sweep- 
 ing plain, peopled with a healthy, hardy race, living near their 
 mother earth, and drawing vigorous sustenance from her ample 
 bosom ; inheritors of earth's last, best civilization, jet possessing 
 the simple tastes and primitive habits of the patriarchs ; with 
 streams of travel flowing in all directions, the iron horse rush- 
 ing along the narrow ribbon of his appointed course, the plains 
 whitened with tented wagons, and, coming from farther dis- 
 tances along their broader roads, caravans of camels — and^ie 
 shall behold a mighty and Heaven-favored land, fair to look 
 upon, chastened and purified, within its wide realm a compe- 
 tence and a home for the migratory hosts from every clime, 
 and throughout all its radiant borders Fkeedom forevermore. 
 
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