Democratic Sentinel, Volume 5, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 June 1881 — Camel Riding. [ARTICLE]

Camel Riding.

The complaints which have been made of the difficulty of riding a camel—of the headache and nausea it causes—proceed, in Gen. Colston’s opinion, from travelers who do not know how to ride them. After the rider has once mastered the art of mounting and dismounting, there is no further trouble, and any one accustomed to horseback may, in the General’s opinion, learn in a single day to ride and manage the camel. “He is the most docile and manageable of all animals, excepting only the Egyptian donkey.” The simple art of easy camel riding consists chiefly i > not permitting your camel to walk, except in deep sand or over steep, rocky ground, where you cannot help it. “ There is not a more back-breaking, skin-abrading motion than a camel’s walk; but, if you press him into a gentle pace, which is the natural gait of a dromedary, he moves both legs on the same side together. Thus he will go all day, with perfect ease to you, and no fatigue to himself, at the rate of about five miles an hour. In that gait his motion feels exactly like that of a very easy trotting horse, though, of course, camels are like horses, some moving easier than others. With every increase of the rapidity of his gait, he goes rougher. ” The higher speed of the dromedary enables the traveler to ride on in advance, and take two or tliree rests in the course of a day, in order tc allow the slower burden camels to come up. But they all camp together at night— Chambers' Journal.