The answer came in a letter dated August 30, 1889. I am willing to defray the cost of the purchase of 20 camels and the cost of the engagement of six camel drivers to be employed in the service of the police. Thirty-two years passed before the camels arrived at the police station in this sleepy patch of the Kalahari, but when they did, the officers sang their praises. Camels, they rhapsodised, live longer than horses. Camels carry heavier loads than horses.
Camels walk longer distances than horses.
And, the clincher, camels drink little water and cheerfully eat nettles and prickly shrubs, the plants that seemed to grow here in great abundance. But by 1959, the allure had begun to fade. And in neatly typed reports to their commanders, the department's Committee on Police Camel Corps started delicately suggesting that camels might be a bit passe. Which just might explain Lemme Talampe's dour face. He pondered as his sweating junior officers saddled the grunting, snorting, grimacing camels during a training exercise.