POWERHOUSE COLLECTION

Notes

Little is known of the history of the Museum's camel packsaddle. It was found in about 1961 in a remote part of South Australia. Fragments of a Melbourne newspaper removed from the lining of the saddle have the date 1887. The packsaddle was acquired by the Museum in 1962 from explorer, author and adventurer Michael Terry (1899-1981), who had led a number of camel expeditions into Central Australia during the middle of the twentieth century. At that time he was concerned that no collecting institutions had acquired such a saddle to remember the significant role played by the camel in opening up Central Australia. Even in the 1960s packsaddles were rare, having been either burnt or discarded to the elements many years previously, following the decline in the use of the camel in the 1940s. An image of Terry and his camel 'Dick' was featured on the 1988 bicentennial commemorative $10 note. In 1860 the Victorian Government imported 24 camels from India for use by the explorers Burke and Wills. Six years later, Sir Thomas Elder brought 121 camels and 12 Afghan drivers to South Australia from India for his own pastoral stations. He later began breeding camels thus laying the foundations upon which heavy inland transportation developed. The camel was ideally suited to the desert environment and could carry four times as much as a horse. An average camel could haul 550 to 600 lbs., travelling from 10 to 20 miles per day at 2 to 3 miles per hour over an 8-hour day for two months at a time. Some camel trains numbered 20, 40 or even 80 camels. Initially the headman in charge was a European with one Afghan for every eight camels. The area traversed by the camel trains was said to have been about three-quarters of the Australian continent from the Murray River, Spencer's Gulf, and along the south coast to Albany in Western Australia which constituted the southern boundary, then north to Burketown on the Gulf of Carpentaria and to Wyndham and Broom in the North-west. The entire coastline from Broome to Geraldton was covered and extended east to the Dividing Range of New South Wales and Queensland. The Afghans were extremely competent at working lines of pack camels and had great knowledge about the care of the camels which Europeans failed to master. Loading camels was difficult and camels were noted for their opposition to this task. Even the most docile camel would roar, groan or show its teeth and biting the unwary loaders. Once loaded it would quieten down and the camel train moved along quickly and if possible kept going without any stops. The camels were led in single file, tied together with short lengths of rope extending from the nosepeg of one to the tail or packsaddle of its predecessor. The nosepeg was inserted into the muscle of the camel's nostril, the thicker end on the inside and the pointed end protruding on the outside. A light piece of string was tied to the projecting end of the nosepeg to which the lead rope was attached. Any sudden jerk through anger or fear broke the string and the camel was freed from restraint without injury. A ring in the nose would have been useless and caused permanent injury with a single toss of the head. Wooden nosepegs were eventually replaced by plastic ones and could still be bought at the general store at Oodnadatta, South Australia in the 1970s. Once camp was reached the camels were then unloaded in great haste and left sitting with their empty pack saddles for a while to chew their cud and sleep before being turned out for the night in their hobbles. The Afghans slept in a temporary corrugated-iron shed or bower of gum branches. They led a nomadic life with few personal possessions and were always ready to move. Being Muslims, the Afghans did not drink alcohol and were a popular choice for carting beer and spirits to the hotels on the goldfields. They worked quietly and swiftly with their camels and never beat them. A cameleer recognised each of his camels by their distinctive appearance. The camels were very curious and would carefully watch their surroundings as they walked along in a line all looking together at anything unusual. The greatest danger to camels was poisoning from either chewing bones, which had been baited against dingoes, or eating poisonous plants such as broadleaf. The Afghans would give a poisoned camel six, one-pound tins of butter but apparently this could not cure it and death was inevitable. The Afghan camel drivers brought a varied vocabulary of terms to Australia, but the only word that found a place in the Australian language was the command "hooshta", which ordered the camel to kneel or rise. The Australian equivalent is the word 'hoosh' or 'whoosh' which was universally used by cameleers. The main camel breeding was undertaken by Afghans with strings of cow-camels. The calves were all planned to be born within a few weeks of one another so there were not too many calves walking with the line at the same a time. A choice of camp which provided good feed and water was then made. If a calf was born on the road it was tied up neatly in a sitting position, placed in bag with its head sticking out and put onto its mother's load for a few days until it was strong enough to walk with the line. The smooth tracks worn by lines of pack camels became extensively used by shearers and other itinerant workers on bicycles. Any stones were swept away by the camels' feet or pressed into the ground while sandy country was conveniently compressed. Once the Afghan camel trains were replaced with other means of transport the Afghans found it difficult to go into other occupations. As late as the 1920s and 1930s the explorer Dr C.T. Madigan was using camels for expeditions into the Simpson Desert. He was the last of the explorers to use camels after which time exploratory and surveying activities were undertaken with Land-Rovers and Jeeps. Camels were retained by some outback police patrols in the Northern Territory until the 1940s. Dr Madigan summed up the ability of the camel in the following " at first they are queer, awkward, sly, hard to understand, stupid, smelly, unapproachable and unfriendly, horribly noisy with awful groans at loading-time, generally repulsive, and trying to the nerves of anyone in a hurry ... the whole process of travelling by camel seems antiquated and exasperating. But when the thermometer begins to pass 100: day after day, when the feed disappears, and only dry brambles can be found, and, finally, when water and the possibility of water become nothing but a wild hope, then the camel comes into his own. There he kneels, uncomplaining and unconcerned, a tower of strength and comfort, living on the fat of his hump, and good for another 200 miles."