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An Interesting Camel Story
After reading an interesting camel story today, I wondered whether the author had ever known a real camel. He said camels are loaded on their knees. When a particular camel was being loaded, he said it moaned and groaned and bellowed with every pound added, as camels usually do - so far so good. Finally, he said, the leader of the caravan, whose camel it was, became sympathetic, but he had one more box to load.
The leader asked, "Mr. Camel, Mr. Camel, can I put one more box on you?"
"Go ahead, sir!" Mr. Camel replied, "I'm not going to stand up anyway!"
Well, I don't know a whole lot about camels, but I don't believe that story. I do know that camels served in the Army in Texas and Arizona just before the Civil War. Then the railroads came, and that was that.
When I was in the First Cavalry Division in Texas, I acquired a book about an English officer named Lawrence who induced a group of Arabs to cross a supposedly un-crossable desert and attack and take a Turkish city whose fixed cannons were turned to the sea. They crossed on camels - I think it took two weeks.
Now the Turks knew it couldn't be done. The Arabs knew it couldn't be done. but Colonel Lawrence caused it to be done. Years later, his book, The Seven Pillars of Wisdom, was filmed as 'Lawrence of Arabia, starring Omar Shariff and Peter O' Toole. The Colonel had much to say in his book about body odors and sweat, lack of water and camels.
Many times when riding horseback in Texas, I wondered if I could duplicate that feat. I did have a strange experience out on the desert. We were on a training exercise near Donna Anna and an awful sandstorm came up - visibility was zero. Each horse took its rider - wherever! We couldn't see each other at all.
Finally the storm ended, and I was not able to see even one person around me, but was entirely alone. I did, however, see a hat, so I went to pick it up and was shocked to find a man under it, buried up to his eyebrows. He was alive. In about an hour, I was able to dig him up. A lucky break - he knew the way back to camp, so I offered him a ride with me so he and I could find our buddies. And then, a second shock! He said, "No, thanks, I'll ride my own horse. Let's dig him up too!"
Sure enough, the man I found had been buried in the sand while still mounted - with his horse under him. Did you ever try to dig up a horse who was in sand up to his ears?
It was not easy. Before we were done, I wished I had never seen either of them. Or the hat, either.
