ABPA - Australian Bush Poets Association

Fifteen Hundred Camels

© Stephen Whiteside 24.09.2011

Fifteen hundred pelvises.
Fifteen hundred skulls.
Three thousand femurs gleaming white,
Picked clean by hungry gulls.

Fifteen hundred skeletons
Of camels cruelly slain
Laid out end to end to mark
The strip to land the plane.

The First World War had come and gone. Thoughts returned to home.
Increased numbers chose along the Birdsville Track to roam.
The government devised a system. Ev'ry twenty miles
They'd sink a bore, and try to turn the drovers' frowns to smiles.

They needed scores of camels for this building of the nation.
What better place to breed them all than Muloorina Station?
They bought it from the Bosworth clan, and when the job was through
They sold it with the rider of a dreadful job to do.

The camels all must be destroyed, for now their work was done.
The fate of each lay right before the barrel of a gun.
The Prices did this gruesome deed. It offered them no joy.
As monument to memory, they then devised this ploy.

Fifteen hundred pelvises.
Fifteen hundred skulls.
Three thousand femurs gleaming white,
Picked clean by hungry gulls.

Fifteen hundred skeletons
Of camels cruelly slain
Laid out end to end to mark
The strip to land the plane.

That is horrendous - it is only man that would treat so despicably and cruelly animals that given of their best to help us. What an indictment on man but no doubt the alternatives were eventual starvation or dog meat - just doesn't seem right though does it?

Well written take on a relatively unknown slice of our history

Cheers

Maureen

Interesting story Stephen. It makes you wonder who got the job of collecting all the bones? Yuk!

Heather

Thanks Maureen, Heather. The Prices would have done that, Heather - father and son.

It is an interesting story, isn't it. I'm currently reading 'My Life with Charles Chauvel' by his wife, Elsa, and this story leapt out at me on page 165. Elsa came across it towards the end of their career, when they were filming the 'Walkabout' series for the BBC. Interestingly, all the film of 'Jedda' was taken to London for processing. I think all the post-production work was done there, too.

If it is any comfort there are still plenty left out here....

Yes, I was waiting to see if you'd have anything to say on the subject, Ross. I guess they were just cleaning up after themselves. It used to be 'burn, bash and bury', then it became 'you carried them in, you carry them out'. Tin cans? Camels? What's the difference? (Only joking...I think.)

...are you baiting me Stephen?.... I just had a close encounter with one today on my way home, they cause a fair amount of damage to a small vehicle....and the occupant, in the event of a closer encounter! In a more serious note, I don't condone the slaughter of animals of any sort without just cause, but in the game of life it is often them or us....sometimes I'm not too sure we get that right all the time either, carry on my friend.

I'm glad you got back to me, Ross. You ask a good question. To be honest, I was not exactly sure what I was trying to say. I suppose part of me does feel angry that anybody can blithely order the slaughter of fifteen hundred camels - especially after that same person (or department) had created the problem in the first place. On the other hand, I understand that the world was very different back then. A hundred years is nothing in the sweep of history (or prehistory), but the world has changed enormously in that time. Given the millions of men that died in World War One, what's a thousand camels here and there? And I imagine men and beasts were dying on the Birdsville Track, too, and the camels were used to try to reduce that. It's just that, given contemporary sensibilities (and, in my case, urban ones at that), it is very hard to get your head around shooting 1500 camels. That's a lot of bullets - an expensive exercise in itself. I suppose I should be glad they didn't just have their throats cut.

I was anticipating a bit more debate on this subject, and spent some time formulating my response. But it hasn't come. Was all my effort wasted? Never!

Somebody once said to me that they hated reading history, because all the stories were so gruesome. This got me thinking. It's all the grue that attracts me to history. But it's not just that.

History offers a great perspective. It's easy to think the world is a shocking place - and so it is, in many ways. But when you read how things used to be, you discover that, actually, the world is not so bad after all, and a lot of progress has been made.

Mary Gilmore wrote about how brumbies were dealt with in the 19th century. A pen was erected in a bottom paddock, and the brumbies were herded into it. A sharp knife was then attached to a long stick. Using this implement, each of the brumbies received a sharp jab in the belly. Then they were all released. A few of them immediately tripped over loops of bowel, but most of them just cantered away. Sure as eggs, though, they'd all be dead of peritonitis in a few weeks. It was a very cheap and quick way of getting rid of a very damaging pest. It was also unspeakably cruel, and I don't imagine it would happen nowadays in Australia - but perhaps I am kidding myself.

The French Revolution is popularly known for its brutality, but it actually led to a huge improvement in the quality of life of most Frenchmen. The guillotine was similarly celebrated. It offered quick and sure beheadings - such an improvement on the old system of three or four uncertain blows with an axe of variable sharpness. One could go and on, but I guess that's enough.

History doesn't seem to be a very sexy subject these days, which is a shame. I think it has an enormous amount to offer. Of course, when it is then combined with poetry, well, what can I say? I'm as happy as a pig in mud!

Stephen you talk of cruelty nasty subject isnt it yet here in this good old country we introduced MIXO to the rabbits a form of VD that caused most to die of starvation via blindness and from the recent drought wild animals both native and ex domestcated staved to death because we were not aloud to put them out of their misery with a quick bullet. Wars do that thin things out a bit cruel it may sound and it is but it allows more of everything to go around. I was a pro shooter out in the country that you city people think is fantastic
where there is a balance that you townes never know or even think about

Bill Williams