84 THE WAR IN THE SOUDAN.

after and well cared for by a man who understands its habits, its tempera¬ ment, etc., and hence in every camel corps that is raised upon proper prin¬ ciples you must have one man to drive and another man to fight. The driver, a light-weight, carrying a light carbine, sits in the front of the camel’s hump. Your fighting man, equipped complete, sits behind the hump. When neces¬ sary the camel kneels down, the soldier alights, the driver takes his beast to the rear, and you have at once an infantry force ready to resist or attack without being burdened with any sense of responsibility for the camels, which are left in the hands of their drivers, who constitute an efficient force for their defence. In the nondescript corps which has been careering across the Bahiuda desert, who takes charge of the camels when the riders dismount in order to go into action ? It is an axiom in all camel corps that if you don’t take care of your camel you lose him—that is to say, he will die. But with proper care your camel will go through almost incredible hardships. In one campaign on the Indian frontier I had 6,000 camels under me and did not lose one of them. In the Afghan campaign we lost 60,000—and why ?

Because in the former case the camels were in charge of men who understood them, whereas in Afghanistan the camels were handed over in most cases to the tender mercies of those who had no more idea of a camel than they had of an ostrich. The result was that the poor brutes were often shamefully illused and died by thousands. It is a mistake, however, to imagine that the excessive consumption of what you may call transport camels in Afghanistan has in any way diminished the number of camels required for a camel corps. The camels used up in Afghanistan were small beasts of burden, costing from £5 to £10 each. The camels with which the camel corps was formed were the finest camels in the world, bred in Jesulmere, and trained as riding camels, costing from £25 to £35 each. Of these you can get plenty, if you pay for them. The difficulty of shipping camels is absurdly exaggerated.

We carried shiploads of them to the Persian Gulf without any difficulty. The great thing is to entrust the job to the hands of men who know their business.”

Nevertheless there are some splendid achievements yet to be recorded of General Wolseley’s camel corps.