Our Man of the Camels

It makes me happy to bring to light some women who work with camels (Our Lady of the Camels, three posts). I haven't even touched on those who labour to grow the camel dairy industry, what with the health benefits of camel milk slowly being recognized.

But I can no longer avoid sharing a man of the ilk. Avoiding is not an apt word; I've put it off because describing one of the most consistently decent human beings I have ever met ‒ is next to impossible. Decent ‒ is that quite right? Considerate, caring, modest, funny, warm, open-minded, literate, patient, unpretentious ... see, so many very suitable words come to mind but they will encourage disbelief, ringing like the smitten fan that I am.

'Tis Doug Baum, hardworking proponent and advocate of traditional camel culture.

For your information, it's not just me. Hundreds of people across the United States and bushels more across the world know and love Doug Baum for his camel expertise, his willingness to help, his hospitality, his uniquely enriching tours abroad. Not to mention his home-based Big Bend Camel Treks in eastern Texas. Want a history lesson? Doug's Texas Camel Corps attends numerous schools and historical reenactments where he educates. Need camels for your living Christmas tableaux? Doug's on it. In fact, his entire family trailers their own camels (nine at last count) around the countryside and beyond; in 2016, for instance, they participated in some thirty-nine nativity and holiday performances.

Cameleers looking for training advice or for veterinarians or saddle construction? Doug and his contacts run training clinics for international participants and freely dispense advice on Facebook. Oh, the contacts! ... in Egypt (where he keeps a home with his Cairo family), Jordan (where he regularly arranges donations for Syrian refugees), Morocco, India. Wishing you could explore an exotic country in-depth with camel ride options? Doug's your man. He leads very small group tours to all those places where travellers spend their time with locals in a cultural immersion; personal relationships become the outstanding memories. His enthusiasm is expanding to Kenya and Mongolia/China.

Mongolia

Morocco, photo: Heather Daveno

Rajhastan

Doug also travels to provide training for animals and handlers, to build saddles, to attend conferences from Mexico to England to Mongolia. He knows that camel tourism – a newly coined phrase – can help ensure the animal's survival and turn things around economically for families in the more depressed regions. Always on his mind is the question of the native camel herdsman: "How do I continue to keep camels in my life in the face of changing times and modernization?"

So Doug's calendar must have 26 hours in a day and 40 days a month. When does he have time to make educational videos or play his guitar? And perfect his Arabic?? Or maybe he's studying Marwari by now. Yes, he has a Facebook page ("The US Army Camel Experiment") with many videos.

At any rate, don't let Doug see this or he would deflect any hint of admiration with his trademark humour.

He lights up the life of everyone he meets. I consider him the redheaded son I might have had. Camel culture is his calling, but the man with the stetson is a full-time goodwill ambassador on a global scale.

© 2018 Brenda Dougall Merriman

Military and Police Camels

What an excuse for extraordinary photos! In the Middle East, South Asia, and parts of Africa, camels have long served in terrain where a horse could not perform. In fact camels still serve a useful role in strategic army and policing commands.

Probably the most exciting and popular part of India's annual Republic Day parade is the Border Security Forces contingent. You would scarcely believe a 36-piece brass band is included in the camel brigade. True! Even Google did this:[1]

Photo: NPR

Just as incredible is the mounted military pipe band of the Pakistan Desert Rangers. The old Empire has a long echo! In daily life the riders and their steeds are in far less colourful attire, musical instruments safely stowed elsewhere we presume.

Photo: Aamir Qureshi

But wait. Not to be outdone, how about the Royal Oman Police Mounted Pipe Band!?? Purely ceremonial, the band along with its camel cavalry exists to promote cultural traditions. Sultan Qaboos clearly has respect for his educational days at Sandhurst Military Academy and subsequent service in a Scottish regiment of the British Army.

Photo: sickchirpse.com

A photo of the Saudi National Guard eludes me. Qatar has a mounted camel unit, and probably so do several more countries of the same climate and traditions.

Qatar Heritage Police. Photo: www.news.CN

Of course what you are seeing are ceremonial dress uniforms and displays. Everyday routine requires their appearance to be much more suited to their desert surroundings. While some camel units have been replaced by tanks, others have transitioned to public law and order duties with high visibility as tourist attractions.

Jordan Royal Desert Forces. Photo: Warrick Page, NY Times

Photo: camelphotos.com

Photo: BDM

Placing Egypt's mounted police in tourist areas was a smart move. A quiet job, perhaps a bit boring?

Historically, army camels have been known since ancient times, at least from Hannibal's crossing of southern Europe. They were far superior to horses as pack animals in terms of cargo weight and distance coverage. As cavalry, they were equally fast and when couched would serve their riders as gun placements or shade from an unforgiving sun.

Recently a Bactrian camel skelton was uncovered in Austria, believed to be part of the Ottoman army besieging Vienna in 1683.[2]

Photo: BBC

The British became accustomed to using camels in their historic campaigns in Africa, India, and the Middle East. Australian troops formed the first companies.

Imperial Camel Corps Brigade, First World War. Photo: Capt. Douglas G. Pearman

Here is the Imperial Camel Corps's ambulance transport, an amazing photo from http://australiancamels.com/camels-in-war/:

The United States Army imported camels to be pack animals in southwest desert areas, a previous post here. Compare the results to Australia's importation of camels in the same nineteenth century period for similar purposes: Oz now has an explosion of feral camels whereas the American southwest has none. 

US Army Camel Experiment reenactment. Photo: Texas Camel Corps

Interestingly, one Australian police force is bringing camels back for desert patrols after a sixty year hiatus.[3] New South Wales has come full circle.

Camels are familiar to United Nations troops who now serve in missions in countries with demanding equatorial terrain, for instance Sudan and Eritrea.

Photo: http://www.defensemedianetwork.com/stories/camels-at-war/

It seems unlikely that the stolid beasts will be completely replaced by tanks.

[1] http://tech.firstpost.com/news-analysis/google-doodle-celebrates-indias-67th-republic-day-with-bsf-camel-contingent-296624.html.

[2] Jonathan Webb, "Intact Ottoman 'War Camel' found in Austrian cellar," BBC News, Science and Environment (http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-32145248).

[3] NSW Police Force, https://www.facebook.com/nswpoliceforce/?fref=nf.

© 2016 Brenda Dougall Merriman

Hi Jolly

Photo credit: It appears so often on the Internet,
difficult to tell the real origin; this is from the
Quartzsite Yacht Club

He was called Hi Jolly. His name was Hadji Ali (Ali al-Hajayah). He was a Moslem Ottoman, the man most closely associated with the United States Army Camel Experiment. Or perhaps he was Syrian. Or Greek. It's a story not well known in the U.S.A., let alone Canada.

In 1856 the U.S. Army imported altogether seventy-five camels from the Middle East as the "answer" to facilitating American expansion across the southwestern territories. Who but a man of the Middle East to handle the animals and train the soldiers to adapt. Actually more than one man was hired from the Levant but Hi Jolly, as the Americans quickly dubbed him, became the legend. He was capable and well-liked by all accounts.

Courtesy Doug Baum

The project was the brainchild of Jefferson Davis, then U.S. secretary of war. His own experience in the southwest and understanding of camels' role in distant desert areas led him to the bold experiment. Camels would fare so much better as pack animals in the arid terrain than horses. And they did. The camels were stationed at Camp Verde, Texas, near San Antonio. They first fulfilled their promise in the 1857 Beale Expedition, a successful trip transporting supplies and surveyors across Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California to Los Angeles. For several years their use was continued even after the Confederacy took over in southern areas.

Then what? By the time the Civil War ended the Camel Corps project had evaporated along with Davis's political power. Congress declined further funding; some said that camels frequently spooked the horses and other animals, causing disruption and timing delays. A plaque at the Hi Jolly Memorial in Quartzsite, Arizona, reads in part: "Officially the camel experiment was a failure, but both Lt. Beale and Major Wayne were enthusiastic in praise of the animals. A fair trial might have resulted in complete success." Some of the "failure" has to be attributed to uninformed poor treatment of the animals.

Wikimedia.org

"Legends" beget more legends and it's not easy to separate facts from the apocryphal. Many camels were auctioned off by the government but others were set free in Arizona to roam the desert. Camels were still being reported in the American desert in the 1930s. More or less abandoned, Hi Jolly was out of a job but unlike his few colleagues decided to remain in the United States. Among other occupations he became a prospector and a mail courier. Known as Phillip Tedro after his naturalization in 1880, he married, had two daughters, and died in 1902 in Quartzsite, Arizona. There, much later, a memorial was erected to him.

Doug Baum, likely the most camel-knowledgeable man in North America, created the Texas Camel Corps partly to commemorate the Beale Expedition, and also to spread the word about these hardy and fascinating animals.  

Courtesy Doug Baum

His Facebook page says it: "The Texas Camel Corps was established to educate the public on the historic use of camels in America in the 19th century." Demonstrating historical re-enactments of the U.S. Camel Corps is only one of dozens of educational events he conducts or participates in all year long. I greatly anticipate the book he will publish in 2015.

This photo I took unsuspectingly about ten years ago is one of several you might come across in Arizona ― tributes to the legend of the camels and Hi Jolly. Quartzsite remembers its most famous citizen.

Addendum August 2015: A perfect example of how legends grow is an article in Smithsonian.com - http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/whatever-happened-wild-camels-american-west-180956176/?no-ist

Sources:

● Doug Baum, "The status of the camel in the United States of America," paper given at the 2011 Camel Conference of the University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies (https://www.soas.ac.uk/camelconference2011/file84331.pdf).

● Doug Baum, April 2014, "Confederate Reunion Grounds," The Camel's Tale (www.texascamelcorps.com and https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-US-Army-Camel-Experiment/).

● Ibraham Kalin,"From Hadji to Hi Jolly," 6 December 2014, Daily Sabah (Istanbul) (http://www.dailysabah.com/columns/ibrahim-kalin/2014/11/25/from-hadji-ali-to-hi-jolly).

● Forrest Bryant Johnson, The Last Camel Charge: The Untold Story of America's Desert Military Experiment. New York: Penguin, 2012; preview on Google books.

● "Hi Jolly" and "United States Camel Corps," Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hi_Jolly and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Camel_Corps).

● "The U.S. Army Camel Experiment," 2014 Tour Schedule, History America Tours (http://historyamerica.com/tours/14-CamelCorps.html).

© 2014 Brenda Dougall Merriman