EMBARKATION SLING.
In regularly-fitted horse transports, boxes are not unfrequently fitted for the horses to walk into before being lowered in them. Sometimes, when near the shore, horses are allowed to swim to land.
The management of horses on board ship will be treated of under the head “Veterinary Surgery.”
HOLD ON, ALL!
Pack animals and packs.
Horses and ponies for packing should be of sturdy short-legged, cobby breed. A full-sized horse’s pack for moderately fast and continuous travelling should not weigh more than about 120lb. A lively well-formed ox will carry about the same burden. Donkeys will carry from 50lb. to 60lb., according to size and condition. A pair of strong cane or wicker panniers, with lids made to hinge and lock, and covered with stout waterproofed duck, will be found very useful for putting in articles for immediate use. Cooking utensils, food for the day, and a change of dry garments, are conveniently stowed away in these receptacles. Beware how you pack a number of rattling, clattering pots, pans, and kettles loosely on a timid ox’s back. Should sudden alarm seize him, it will most probably lead to such a scene as is represented in the illustration on the opposite page.
Camels.
Camels and dromedaries are frequently most valuable to the traveller; and, although generally associated with the torrid zone and its belongings, we see no reason why the camel should not be successfully acclimatised in many countries in which it is now practically unknown to the packer and traveller. “Camel Land” has been said to embrace the Canaries, Morocco, Algiers, Tunis, Tripoli, the Great Desert, Egypt, Africa, Arabia, Turkey in Asia, Persia, Cabool, Beloochistan, Hindoostan, Burmah, Thibet, Mongolia, Tartary in Asia, the Crimea, and a comparatively small tract of country in the neighbourhood of Constantinople. The camel has been kept and rendered available for general use on the estates of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, at Pisa, for very nearly two centuries. Australia and America are, we conceive, particularly well calculated for the utilisation of the labours of the camel. The opinion commonly entertained that the camel can only flourish in tropical lands is most erroneous. The ordinary geographical range of this animal may be roughly stated as being between 15° and 52° of north latitude, and 15° of longitude west of Greenwich to about 120° east of it. We have had opportunities of working camels of the Bactrian, Arabian, and Saundney breeds, under more than common vicissitudes of both climate and labour; we have ridden, muffled up in fur helmet and gloves, through the deep snow, where the woolly-coated Bactrians, crouching behind a sheltering rock, discussed their meal of coarse steepe hay contentedly, and were hardy to a degree; we have seen the burden camels of Egypt, under huge loads, trooping across the dry deserts of that land as if they were in their element; we have performed over 3000 miles of packing with Indian camels, and have taken part in most severe forced marches with Saundneys, carrying two men (an Englishman and a native), a heavy saddle, two sets of arms, accoutrements, and ammunition, over difficult tracts of country bordering on the sandy desert regions of Central India.