80 THE WAR IN THE SOUDAN.

CHAPTER XXI.

THE CAMEL CORPS.

What the ocean would be without ships, Egypt would be without its “ ship of the desert.” Vast areas would be absolutely impassable ; merchan¬ dise could not pass from one productive spot to another; whole regions would be isolated; news could only with extreme difficulty cross from one locality to another by long and circuitous paths; trade would be confined; tribes dwelling in habitable localities separated by sterile and waterless wastes would learn little if anything of each other; and the country at large would probably be made up of a number of isolated peoples knowing little of each other and nothing of the outside world.

All this the camel obviates. It is truly a most wonderful animal. It scorns the terribleness of the desert. It can go for ten days without drinking, and for twenty days without eating. It will travel twenty-five miles a day with a weight of four hundred or five hundred pounds on its back. It will set out for a ten days’ march in which not a drop of water or a morsel of food can be obtained without fear of the results. The rider must have his three meals and his proportionate supply of wa.er daily,—the animal that carries him will plod on for a week and half and cover two hundred and fifty miles without either.

It was on these animals that Lord Wolseley proposed to mount 1,100 men, to form a corps made up of detachments from the three Household Cavalry regiments, seven battalions of the Guards, 16 cavalry regiments, and a part of the naval brigade. They were to travel along the west bank of the Nile, and to form one of the principal parts of the expedition.

This important branch of the army was not without its ludicrous side. The gigantic heavy dragoon mounted as he would be on horse-back* on the restless, ill-contented, and altogether astonished camel was a sight not easily to be forgotten. The rider knew not what to make of his beast, and the beast could less easily comprehend the nature of his rider. The ordinary riding-school words of command fell at first unheeded upon his ears, accus¬ tomed only to Arabic persuasives and Arabic expletives. The blue-jackets got on better. Jack Tar takes kindly to animals and was soon on the best of terms with his “ship of the desert,” to which he had of course given an * The saddles supplied were quite different from those ordinarily used in Egypt, and allowed the rider to ride astride just as on a horse.