The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1894-03-17
UNCLE SANS CAMEL HERD.
From the New York Sun.

From the New York Sun.
Much picturesque and unfounded
nonsense has been written about al
legged wild camels reported to wander
in herds along the valley of the ella
river, in Arizona.
"Teamsters along the valley" wrote
one imaginative Photographer, ''have
much trouble from these beasts, whose
ungainly figure brighten the mules and
horses SO that great difficulty in keep.
ing them to the trail"
But there is true and interesting
story back of these tales for tenderfeet-
These exotic and mythical beasts that
roam in the romancers fancy are as
sumed to be descendants from the his
toric herd of camels brought from the
Orient by the government some years
before the civil war, with the idea that
they could be made serviceable in
transporting army supplies and other
freight upon that arid region then
known to geographers as 1.-THE Great
American Desert"
They were purchased principally at
pOAhSS lAiC COdStf
were fine animals of their kind.
Naturally these numbering Asiatic
burden-bearers proved worthless for
any purpose under the conditions pre-
vailing in the southwest. The Ameri-
can language, even with its Texas re-
Inducements, afforded a vocabulary
alike inadequate ahd unsuited to the
directing of these ships of the desert"
and the western mule-whacker swore
horribly, threw down his whip, and
reached for his gun when the sugges-
ton was made that he turn camel
driver.
The cowboys eyed them from a dis
tance critically ard disapprovingly,
passed facetious and dispsraging re-
marks, and would none of them.
Only the fezzed and turbaned Arab
drivers brought with the camels to the
United States could handle them, and
lacking assistants, they could do little
in the way of utilizing the animals for
freight carrying.
So the camels and their foreign
swarthy attendants were still useless
national charge in Texas when the war
broke out, and the strange, hump
backed, lop-lipped beasts, with other
federal property, were seized by the
confederates. who in this case found
that they had the equivalent OF several
elephants on their hands
They couldn't use them, they didn't
want to kill them, and so throughout
the war the camels remained corraled
and fed at confederate post. which at
the close Of the struggle fell again into
the hands OF the union government,
with its troublesome charge augment
ed IN numbers BY natural increase
This fostering OF the came! herd
again upon the federal government Is
said TO have been regarded by the Tex
ans as redeeming feature in the col-
lapse of the confederacy. The canels'
unamis bility and intracta bility had not
improved but quite the reverse, throagh
their long period o: inactivity.
The difficulties of attending TO them
threw the perils of rnule-whaeling far
into the shade. and were regarded as
partaking of the hazard OF battle
When political connections had some
what Quoted down, in the recOnstr1c-
ton period. so that matters OF detail
cooid he attended to. the canels. By o.
der OF the secretary OF war. were sold
TO the highest bidders, aud so were
gradually disposed OF TO keepers OF
uoenagsries th-oug hout the country.
There was one exception An e.-
army officer relates that while he was
stationed at Fort Union, y. &. twenty
i've years ago. the last survivor Of the
herd wandered about on the rese--s-
tion, the unfaiiing wonder Of the Mex
leans, as. standing on the ground, bs
broSsed on the weeds and grass tia.
grew on top Of their fat, ezrtA-rOofed.
one-stor;ed huts
Mexieans made up family parties and
travelled long distances 10 see the beast,
huf re9arie3 Il alyAxs With 6istrEkt-