Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 43, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 July 1885 — A Study of the Camel. [ARTICLE]

A Study of the Camel.

No European army has made a study of the camel, and the ignorance of its masters is fatal to the beast, writes a correspondent of the London Telegraph. Its routine of life is directed, or should be, upon principles as immutable as the laws that govern the solar system. Its existence has all the rigid formality of a legal process. To disorganize, disarrange a camel is to spoil it; to hustle it is to kill it. Spleen, liver complaint, heart disease, are the result of irregularities in hours or habits; it breaks up altogether under unusual conditions of life. You cannot work one of these beasts to death if you use it in a proper way. Bat anything out of the common shrivels it up— destroys it. Its timidity is of the stupid superstitions kind. Substantial causes for fright, such as would alarm an intelligent horse, are disregarded by the camel. Yet it wilFfake fright for no reason whatever, or next to none. And then, as is always the case with the unreasoning,' it passes in a moment from perplexity to panic. The only plan, therefore, when convoying with eamels through an enemy’s country is to hobble the animals as soon as danger threatens. The moment the scouts fall back the camels should be made to sit down and their legs should be knee-haltered in such a way that they cannot move, let their tremor be what it may. For once on their legs they are stampeded, and all attempts at rallying them are as f utile as trying to coax a sand-storm to stop. This fact abont hobbling took; ns some time to learn, but we learned it at last, and stampede is no longer among the dangers upon which those who accompany the convoys have to count.