Show M e CA omin IA X 4 wr t I 1 if VE yo 4 jaw ja w r IV illy fly ELMO SCOTT WATSON 1113 camels are coming 1 no it the old circus call nor a paraphrase on words of the old poem aart the siege of lucknow no nor tin an 1 of a now new p drive the camels the tha servants of man since prehistoric times are coming to call ada there to work on the of certain farmers in who believe that these ships of esert may be superior to horses mules its as draft animals and if experiment across the andary line la Is successful it la Is t all unlikely that it may be tried orth arth dakota montana and other 3 whore where climate lind and soil sell condl are similar to those in the dion er in camels have been for some time BB as form farm animals have ave proved their worth on the and the reaper several of these Is s are already in in service in can and the saskatchewan farmers ordered more from northern a they are the cam which idich are different from the an camel in being smaller and ler er having longer wool and er feet and they are remark tor or their ability to stanl stand extremes 1 it t and cold these camels thrive e plateau of tibet where the ocleter shoots up to degrees mer limer only to fall for far below zero winter canadian farmers who are go make the experiment are doing ause they believe that the camill live longer thau horses can faster carry heavier loads and wk ork longer and under more ad weather conditions s s are capable of carrying loads X to 1500 pounds and can walk p snow in which horses would er helplessly the pace of the Is steady and uniform how 9 they are Is shown by the fact lie e lighter type of desert camel ten traversed rulles miles a day ellered also that it will cost less i the camels than horses because humpbacked hump backed animals aal mala will eat anything they can find tough ery and thorny plants y rate the experiment will be ed 3 with interest interi Inter pst st by farmers in suntry even though it probably ver iver be adopted on a large scale interesting also to recall that cited statts government once 4 i somewhat smilar experiment gh eh for a different purpose dur mexican war jefferson davis resident of the confederacy but colonel in gen zachary tay riny my was struck by the fact that would be much better than or rallies mules for transport service deserts of the he great sent southwest en n he became secretary of war president Pr franklin branklin anklin pierce he ined to make the experiment after fter ter some effort succeeded in n getting an appropriation of from congress for that pur lie he detailed maj henry no to the task of going abroad ur chasin the camels and the department lepart ment ordered meat darter ert jar commanding the i to t take 11 vayne 0 on P his mission 1 it in getting the camels and L 11 alieni po to thi united states a and nd porter orter scoured the levant IR N 1 in their quest and soon found that theirs wits was ft a difficult task they visited tunis Salon len constantinople tile the crimea alexandria and smyrna tho the crimean war was waa then in progress anil and england had bought up lip nil tho the camels available in that part of the country in other places they found there were laws forbid forbidding dl g the export of camels and in sever several I 1 places laces they found that they needed alie I 1 e wit of a yankee horse trader to d deal with the wily sultans pashas and beys and their grafting underlings eventually however they got what they wanted and on february 15 the supply sailed from smyrna with 12 male and 20 female camels and one calf one adult camel died en ell route and two of the six calves born on board lived so that 34 of the animals were landed nt at indianola now port lavaca texas a month or so later the camels had proved themselves good sailors although their objections to going abroad had to be overcome by tho use of block and tackle A special harness had been designed to lash ahm to the deck as a safeguard against rough weather but they gave very little trouble la in some of the storms that were encountered the arrival of the camels in texas caused something of a sensation and some borne of the natives were skeptical of their value as beasts of burden this win was soon eoon overcome however when major wayne sent one of the animals to a forage barn to carry four bales balea of hay which weighed 1250 pounds after the kneeling camel had been loaded with this burden it calmly arose and walked away ns as though scarcely aware of the weight the alie camels were next marched overland to their permanent quarters at camp berde GO 00 miles northwest of san antonio and immediately put into transport service where they soon demonstrated their usefulness ill one case six camels accompanied by two six mule teams were sent in to san antonto antonio to carry back oats the camels immediately returned to pump verde in 54 hours with pounds of grain the mule teams however h however bed to rest in san antonio a day longer and returned in 00 06 hours within a few months the camel corps experiment was considered such a success s that lieutenants porter and heaps were sent back to the levant to get another lot of the animals they returned with 41 and the scope of the camel corps activity widened edward F bealo beale used 20 of them to carry supplies while building a wagon road from new mexico to california in 1857 and during the tha next four years ho he continued to use them in explore ing trips through remote parts 0 of f new mexico co and arizona despite the apparent success of the experiment however ap ao element of duo due to the discord arose that was temperamental of the be camels and the mw men who had chaise of them the american mu mule le ski skin ners nera almost from I 1 the start the th e mu mule tile the foreign beast skinners e s disliked and as they became better acquainted with the dio gen generel gener erni nl cussedness of them ornery brutes tile mule sIdni iera calne to lovo love thein less and less so tile tho i that lint home of the camels had become unmanageable and escaped into the des desert became frequent albeit tile the camels were frequently aided in their lei escape capell by the men themselves then the approach of the civil war caused tile nt of the war department part ment to be turned to LitT affairs airs of greater importance and tile the Cit camel niel corps suffered from neglect in 1801 the war department had 28 at various posts in california without being put to any use in 1802 1862 lieuten Ll euten tint beale wrote secretory secretary stanton of their idle condition and proposed to US use them for further exploration li if tile southwest but his proposal way rejected na as was waa the plan ho he offered for using them in carrying mall be tween fort mojave N M and new san pedro calif eventually tile the herd was sold to samuel sono some of 0 them were sold gold to circuses others othera to other parties and they were scattered far and wide in tho the file meantime antime tho the herd at camp verde in texas had bad passed into tho thi hands of the confederate government which paid little attention to them and some of them were allowed to wander away into tile the desert the remainder 44 in number again came into the hands bands of the united states government nt at the close of the civil war but they were sold at public auction for by thi this time uncle sum sam had definitely given up his camel expert ment tile the camels who had wandered away into the desert at vatious times during the ahe existence of the camel corps have an interesting history til story they lived half wild half free and were seen been from time to time in various 8 pacts of texas arizona and new the apache ap ac he indians who were at il fc nt bt terrified at the sight eight of these strange beasts soon overcame their fear add developed a fondness for camel so many of the animals fell prey to indian hunters others made such a nuisance of themselves by searing bearing aad stampeding the horses and mules of the overland stage lines and freighting ing outfits that war was declined uon upon them and white hunters huntera kled killed iary of them however as lat its as he eighties there still were camels in the southwest and tho the tradition of wild camels reported from tim tv tc time by prospectors and cattle atlan n n wan A favorite one in that section of the country for many years the list men mention tion of the survivors of un as ie sams camel corps was in wb ahn n a newspaper in san antonio carria a story about a camel in a show bearing tho the U S A brand a as well as the of a later i purchaser similar experiments with cardis were tried at one time or another in in other states besides those of the he southwest in 1861 1860 they were wed for a time for freighting between the g gold 0 id of that state arnd in the named d L S 1111 i some same year a man name i grave appeared in denver with I 1 iwo camels ile he had bad an ambitious scerne ne for a system sy stem of camel transport n omaha to san francisco via demir and salt j lake ake city but got little encouragement coura gement in the colorado town so b he 0 departed tor for omaha but there ile he found that everyone basmore wa was smore more IA te crested terestea in the plans for the transcontinental railroad which h three deaf later ter linked tile the iwo coasts and hill ciell camel el scheme was dropped |