THE JACK TARS AND THEIR CAMELS.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXII, Issue 7145, 24 April 1885, Page 4

THE JACK TARS AND THEIR CAMELS.

I think I told you (says Mr Burleigh) that one of the fnnny things of camp life at Korti was to see the Household Troops or " Heavies," learning infantry-; drill. "Fours deep," "Fours right — left," '• Form square," resounded in their quartets all day long. Lord Charles Bedford's Naval Brigade arrived on the Bth, and, having promptly pitched their tent 3 and made themselves comfortable on the following day, they turned out on canrelback to learn to handle these ships of the desert. "What's the British army a coming to?" I overheard a soldier who was looking on saying to hiß comrades. 4< lt's a turning it upside down Lord Wolseley ia and rnetamorphorising everything. First he makes sailors of us infantry, sending us here in boats, then be turns the cavalry into infantrymen, and I am hanged if he ain't a making cavalry of the sailors." Perhaps ho was. Anyhow, tho proce.^s was droll in thu extreme. With much persuasion Jack had towed, strung into hns 1 , somo sixty camels, for tho detachment to ride which was to march to Metemmeh. Lord Charles Bereaford and Sir Herbert Stewart and staff, with many more, were there to see the Naval Brigade drill. " Mount," shouted Lieutenant Piggot, who wa9 drilling the contingent. Aboard went Jack, still more quickly the camels snorted and surged to their feet, spilling and sending sprawling ia all directions many a bravo Bailor. Somehow none of the men were hurt, and •whilst Jack was trying to remount the lookers-on smiled audibly; even Lord Charles Beresford himself instantly produced his handkerchief and smothered something that sounded more like laughter than coughing, though it was his own command which was furnishing the fan. When the sailors at length had securely mounted, they Beemed unhappy. Possibly they did not like the short lurches and swinging of the camels, and would have preferred a topgallant yard in a storm at sea. The camels also did not appear to respond promptly to the tugs given by Jack to the guiding head-rope which serves aa a rein for the animal, and the brutes blundered against each other, throwing the line at times into confusion. Their officers, with wary eyes to faults of that sort, strove to correct them by calling to their men "hard a port" or "hard a starboard there." One sailor I heard directed to paß3 the rope across as " that brute steers better from the port side." Another Jack had bo loaded his animal with equipment for the inarch that ho was told to dismount and "stow it afresh, as the camel's saddle had a bad list." Jack, however, was in dead earnest, and meant learning to ride, so tho detachment persevered. The spectators might, I think, have recognised this seriousness. No, a good deal of quiet chaff went on all the same. The cruelest thing I havo heard for a long time was said when the troops got the order to trot, and the Bailors went jog, jump, thump in their paddles, as if thwy Wu s re playing leapfrog on the camels. " Don't bump so," cried a bystander to one of the sailors ; "you'll make his head ache." Jack turned upon his tormentor a melancholy eye, moistened either by the poignancy of his situation or the culd callousness of the remark.