CAMEL POLICE

Greymouth Evening Star, 25 February 1927, Page 11

CAMEL POLICE

RACE LOCUST HORDES.

In the desert wastes of the Kalahari you meet the men of that strange force, the South African Police Camel Patrol. They are lonely men, like the mounted police of the Canadian snows; but they like the life. Their “beat” includes nearly 6,000 square miles of sandy, sun-dried country. They are policemen, wearing blue uniforms and carrying revolvers; yet arresting criminals forms the smallest part of their duty in the Kalahari. They have to collect native taxes, inspect cattle, and detect the dreaded rindepest, report invading swarms of locusts, dip sheep, make meteorological observations, compile voters’ rolls in the isolated villages of the territory. But beyond an occasional stock theft, there is little crime, indeed. Long and dangerous treks across the sand dunes of the Kalahari take up much of their time. Water holes are hard to find in that sun-scorched land. A small desert melon, called tsama, grows after the rains, but there is no other fruit. So each man setting out to a distant native village loads his camel with water bags to last fourteen days, lie carries a rifle, not only to shoot game, but because there are still little bands of wild Bushmen who occasionally attack white men with poisoned arrows. Blankets and a heavy overcoat are necessary, for the hot sand of the daytime becomes ice cold at night. Meat and mealie meal, tea, milk, sugar and a small stove complete the desert policeman’s outfit. For days he sits on his camel, plodding across the yellow sand with his eyes and ears full of grit, without the slightest relief from the all-pervading heat. There are no trees, rivers, or pools in the Kalahari. But there is always a possibility of lying down on a scorpion at night. The policeman may have to travel for a week to reach a single white man at some lonely outpost just because the Census Department requires a form to be filled in.

Camels used in the Kalahari come from the Sudan. The police are expected to cover forty miles a day in normal times. f When great locust hordes are threatening to leave their breeding places in the Kalahari and descend on the rich farming districts of the Union, the men of the camel patrol sometimes cover eighty miles of desert, in twenty-four hours to bring the news to. the nearest telegraph office.