Troops holding outlying positions in the hills were inaccessible to any form of transport but camels, and these had frequently to climb up steep, rocky paths just wide enough to take them and their burdens. On the one side was a precipice; on the other an abyss. Each camel-driver usually led a couple of camels, marching abreast, but when the narrowness of the path made it necessary for them to climb in single file, one was tied by his head-rope to the rear of the other camel's saddle. This, though it was absolutely necessary, rather added to the dangers of the climb. The incessant rains had made the paths slippery in the extreme, and the camel at the best of times is not the most adaptable of creatures; his conformation, moreover, is all against him in so far as scaling a cliff is concerned.
The merest slip on one of these treacherous paths meant destruction. The rear-most camel would stumble, oscillate violently for a moment, and over the side he would go, probably dragging his fellow with him and not infrequently the unfortunate driver as well. Sometimes a camel out of pure cussedness would "barrack" in the middle of a precipitous, narrow path, and only by crawling through the legs of the halted camels could he be reached by the exasperated officer or N.C.O. in charge of the party.
Now a camel has all the obstinacy of a mule and, in addition, is almost impervious to pain. Flogging has little effect on him and profanity none whatever; violence is necessary. Frequently the only way to shift one of these obstinate beasts was by lighting a fire under him! Then he moved, sometimes in such a hurry that he fell over the precipice and broke his neck. I am aware that this method is not mentioned in Field Service Regulations, but a great many things are done on active service which do not come within the scope of that admirable volume. Further, when men's lives were dependent on their receiving food and water at stated times, any methods were justifiable. You could not stop the War and wait till one recalcitrant camel was ready to allow six hundred of his fellows to pass on their lawful occasions.
I speak not without some small personal experience of the vagaries of the camel, though fortunately I was never driven to the extreme measures described above, for some time before the operations about Jerusalem began I retired to "another place" _via_ a cacolet-camel and the hospital train; and when I again emerged it was in another guise and under the ægis of the "Camels."