Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1898-05-12
SIBERIAN SNOW CAMELS.
AN UNFAMILIAR ANIMAL ADAPTED
FOR USE IN THE KLONDIKE,

Much Better Than the Reindeer-It Is ms
Indifferent to Cold as to Thirst-Sheds
Its Fur Coat in Summer and Needs
Little to Eat-It Survives Everything.
Carl Hagenbeck, the proprietor
OF the Thierpark at Hamburg and the
greatest importer of wild animals both
into Europe and America, says: "The
best animal for the Klondike climate
is the big Siberian camel. These camels
transport all merchandise from China to
Russia, and can stand Siberian cold as
well as the greatest heat. They never
need shelter, and sleep out in the deep
snow. They can carry from five to
six hundredweight, and also go in
harness and pull as much as big
horse. They can cross mountains as
well as level country. AS for the
difficulty of procuring them, there is
none. can deliver as many as may
be wanted for 5000 apiece in London
or Grimsby, or $500, duty paid,
in New York" The two-humpsd
Bactrian camel, of which Mr.. Hagen
beck speaks, is the only beast of
burden, not excepting the reindeer, of
which Englishmen have absolutely no
practical experience. 1t was not pro-
curable for the Afghan wars, even the
native Afghan camel being descend
ant of the southern breed which has
migrated to the hills, while the snow
camel keeps north of the Central
Asian line. The Russians are, in
fact, the only Europeans who are &C.
quainted with this universal beast of
transport of Northern Asia, while in
Europe itself it has not been seen
since the revolt of the Tartars, in the
reign Of the Empress Catharine.
In that memorable and bloodstainetl
exodus, when the Tartars fed from the
banks of the Volga to the Great Wall
of China, their herds of snow camels
alone saved the remnant of the peo-
pie; and when, after five months, the
flying horde, reduced from 6O0,0 900 to
100000 souls, together with the pur-
suing Bashkirs, plunged into the
waters of the Lake of Tengis, "like q
host of lunatics pursued by host of
eends," they were still riding on the
camels on which they had started in
ths SHOWS of winter and crossed the
ice Of the Russian rivers. COX, COW,
horse, mule, ass, sheep, or goat, not
one survived" writes De Quincy,
''only the camels. These arid and
adjust creatures, looking like the num-
mics of some antediluvian animals,
without the affections or sensibilities
of flesh and blood-these only lifted
their speaking eyes to the Eastern
heavens, and had to all appearance
come out of this long tempest of trial
nnscathed and hardly diminished. :"
These ''innumerable camels" were all
of the Bactrian breed, and evidence of
the extremes of cold and heat endured
in this enterprise of the Kalmucks may
be found in the fact that during the
beginning stages of the flight CIRCLES
of men, women, and children were
found frozen stiff round the camptires
in the morning, while in the last stage
the horde passed for ten days through
a waterless desert with only an eight
days supply, and yet arrived with
out sensible loss" Of these creatures
on the shore of the Chinese lake.
The constant references to the Bac-
trian camels made by De Quincy, and
his careful repetition of their dis
tinctive name, show his appreciation
of the part they played. But in the
end he is still under the dominion of
the accepted opinion about camels in
general. They are "arid and adjust
creatures of the sand and the hot
desert, rather than of the mountain
and the cold desert or steppe, and the
South Siberian SHOWS. 1t is this dis
5inction of habit and habitat which
gives novelty to Mr.. Hagenbeck's
letter. The physical barrieri of the
Hinalayas and the Hindu -Khoosh not
only separates the two species with
completeness not seen in the case of
any other breed of domesticated ami
NAL, but has relegated one solely to
the use of the yellow men and the
other to the service of the black or
brown men. The one-humped camel
of the South has migrated under do
mestication into the Afghan hills;
there itshas developed thick coat of
hair and a power of climbing, but
neither the sturdiness nor the cold
resisting powers of the Bactrian spe-
cies. From Afghanistian the Southern
camel has followed the trade routes
into Turkestan. There, too, it has
acclimatized; but it is not the in
digenous animal, and cannot adapt it.
self to the extreme cold of South
Siberia or the trade route from east
to west. On the other hand, the love
OF the Siberian camel for cold and the
inhospitable steppes is even more
strongly marked than that of the
southern species for the lands of sun
and heat. 1t makes no southern in
vasion of the Indian plain, and such
caravans as do penetrate to the Indus
Valley come through Afghanistan in
the cold season and return before the
summer. The southern species, with
its indifference to thirst and heat,
makes the stronger appeal to the i'm
| agination. But the camel of the