In praise of camels

Laikipia, Kenya

For decades now I have kept only cattle, goats and sheep on the farm, but for the first time this week, we have a herd of dromedaries browsing in the valley. To see these beautiful creatures moving through the acacia woodland is a pleasure – and I reckon a shrewd move on my part. Camels nibble back the thick bush, which allows the pasture to sprout in the sunshine, which is good for my cows. Camels bellow yet smell sweet. They have rabbit lips with which they lovingly nibble your collar, big giraffe eyes and long, tarty eyelashes. Camels let down their milk long after cattle udders have shrivelled up in a drought. Goats are hardy but nibble bushes to the stump, whereas sheep tear grass out by the root and seek any excuse to die. A camel tends to browse only the higher branches, its soft-padded feet do not scour the ground and erode the soil like a cattle track, and it can survive for three weeks without going to water. ‘A camel man is a man,’ the Somali nomads say, ‘but a goat man is half a man – and a cow man is no man at all.’

Cyclical droughts in East Africa have been killing ever more cattle, leaving pastoralists destitute and forcing them to the margins of towns to find work as night guards, corner boys and hustlers. These youngsters are often out of sorts and, being from the poorest communities, few have the chance of an education that will help them in life. They are disinclined to take up hoe or spade and they can become angry at the modern world. Yet they are the sons of Africa’s best stockmen, who for centuries bred the finest humped Boran cattle, fat-tailed Blackhead Persian sheep worthy of an Old Testament sacrifice and the superb, snow-white Galla goat.