The Ohio Democrat. (Logan, O. [Ohio]) 1886-1906, 1894-03-03
UNCLE SANS CAMEL HERD.
A. Improbable Antcbelium Experimcnt
In Rlalns TRANSPORTATION.

IN flatus TfhnspOrtNttOHs
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 paragrapher, 'have
much trouble from these beasts, whose
ungainly figure frighten the mules and
horses so that ,reat difficulty in keep
ing them to the trail"
But there is n true and interesting
story back of these tales for tenderfeet
These exotic and mythical beasts that
roam In the romnnoer's 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 "rhe Great
American Desert"
They were purchased principally at
points along the Bombay coast, and
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-
inforcements afforded a vocabulary
alike inadequate and 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.
tion was made that he turn camel
driver.
The cowboys eyed them from a dis
tance critically and disapprovingly,
passed facetious and disparaging re-
marks, and would none of them
Only the fezzed and turbaned Arab
drivers brought with the camels to the
United States could handle theln 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 a 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 corralled
and fed at a confederate post which at
the close of the struggle fell again into
the hands of the union government,
with its troublesome charge auymen.-
ed in numbers by natural increase.
This fostering of the camel herd
again upon the federal government is
said to have been regarded by the Tex
ans as redeeming feature in the coll
lapse of the confederacy. The camels'
unaniability and intractability had not
improved, but quite the reverse, through
their long period of inactivity.
The difficulties of attending to them
threw the perils of mule-whncking far
into the shade. and were regarded as
partaiting of the hazard Of battle.
When political commotions had some-
what quieted down, in the recnnstruc-
ti'n period SO that matters OF detail
could be attended to, the camels, by or
der of the secretary of war. were sold
to the highest bidders, and so were
| gradually disposed of to keepers Of
menageries throughout the country.
There was one exception An eX-
army officer relates that while he was
stationed at Fort Union, N. H., twenty
| five years ago, the last survivor of the
| herd wandered about on the reserva-
tion, the unfailing wonder of the Mex
leans, as. standing on the ground, he
browsed on the waeds and grass that
grew on top of their fat earth-roofed,
one-storied huts
Mexicans made up family parties and
Travelled long distances to see the beast,
but regarded it always with distrust,
crossing themselves at it's approach and
uttering prayer against "el diablo."
| OF what became of this lone survivor
the; there seems to be no record more
than of tile Arab drivers These ma
tive drivers were lost to sight in the ex-
element Of the cival war.
They were perhaps sent back at gov
ernment expense, or otherwise, found
their way to their own country; others
may have followed the camels that
were sold and have become employees OF
menageries; it is probable that some
OF them now might be found among
the oriental peddlers who find the
Spanish speaking southwestern regions
SO attractive field for their business.
IN. Y. Sun.