The Saber and Scroll Journal Volume 5, Issue 4, Fall 2016 | Page 28

topography, which horses found challenging. Camels demonstrated their renowned
aptitude to go without water on an 1857 survey mission led by Beale. He rode a
camel from Fort Defiance, Arizona, to the Colorado River, and his team used
twenty-five camels on the expedition. The survey team cantered the camels into
California, to their base at the Benicia Arsenal.
As an unexpected side effect, Middle Eastern culture began to creep into
the American West, albeit in a small dose. The Army employed Hadji Ali and an
additional immigrant to demonstrate to the soldiers how to pack the beasts. The
Americans had a hard time pronouncing Ali’s name so they dubbed him “Hi Jolly.”
Beale left on a Western excursion in June 1857, with “Hi Jolly” alongside as chief
camel driver. Camels laden with six hundred to eight hundred pounds each
journeyed twenty five to thirty miles per day. If the creatures performed well, a
series of Army outposts could later be set up along the route to dispatch
correspondence and provisions across the Southwest. 15
The project achieved success. After reaching California, the voyage
returned to Texas—certainly a significant achievement for Beale. He remarked:
The harder the test they (the camels) are put to, the more fully
they seem to justify all that can be said of them. . . . They pack
water for days under a hot sun and never get a drop; they pack
heavy burdens of corn and oats for months and never get a grain;
and on the bitter greasewood and other worthless shrubs, not only
subsist, but keep fat. . . . I look forward to the day when every
mail route across the continent will be conducted and worked
altogether with this economical and noble brute. 16
However, he may have been too optimistic. What he did not mention was that the
camels did not take to the West’s rock-strewn topsoil. The mules used by
prospectors and the Army were frightened by the strange-looking animals and
would occasionally panic at their mere appearance. His annual report continued
with praise for the camel. The beast, to his mind, had already shown its “great
usefulness and superiority over the horse for all movements upon the plains or
deserts.” It would be of great value against the prowling Indians, and it would
substantially decrease the expenditures of the quartermaster’s responsibility in
supplying transport. 17 Ironically, these camels would eventually meet their fate at
the end of a Native American tomahawk. “Instead of the camel hunting the Indian,
the Indian hunted the camel . . . whenever an opportunity offered, the Apaches
killed the camels; but the camel soon learned to hate and avoid the Indian, as all
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