A sufficient number and variety of animals having been secured, a
caravan is formed to take them across the desert for shipment to
Germany or America. This usually consists of about one hundred camels,
each having its native driver; thirty or forty horses for the white
men, and the Arab hunters and their attendants; a flock of from one
hundred and fifty to two hundred goats, for their milk and also for
food; and black slaves to look out for the goats. The wild animals are
secured in strong boxes and carried on the camels' backs. They are all
young, and fed with goats' milk principally, although occasionally, to
keep them in good spirits, they are given raw goats' meat. Horses are
very cheap there, ranging in price from fifteen to twenty dollars each.
Natives are even cheaper, seven dollars each being thought an
extravagant price for the trip.
The journey ordinarily occupies from thirty to forty days, and all
traveling is done between three and eleven in the morning and five and
eleven in the evening. During mid-day the sun's rays are so fiercely
hot as to make labor or travel hazardous, and none is attempted. The
route home is much the same as that taken out, and in due time the
beasts are landed, usually with very little loss, in Germany. There
they remain until needed to fill orders of showmen in either Europe or
America, while their hardy captors take three months of rest and
recreation before starting on another trip.