Once Upon a Camel Book Blog Tour and #Giveaway #LoneStarLit

One Curious Law

Guest Post by Kathi Appelt

One morning while sipping my first cup of coffee and reading the local newspaper, my husband said this, out of the clear blue: “Did you know that it’s illegal to let your camel run loose on Galveston Island?”

Say what? Who knew? Moreover . . . WHY?

At the time, I was deep into the research stage of my book, ONCE UPON A CAMEL, so my ears were tuned to anything that had to do with camels. My whole project came about from an accidental stumble over an article about this experiment back in the mid-nineteenth century that the US Army did, in which they imported several dozen camels to use as pack animals for traversing the Southwestern deserts and mountains of the North American continent.

But so far as I knew, those Army camels were never in the vicinity of Galveston. When they arrived from the Middle East on the USS Supply, they disembarked a bit further south in the port town of Indianola, on the deep water shore of Matagorda Bay.

So, right away I was pretty sure that the law must’ve come about for some other reason. I narrowed it down to two possibilities.

1. There is ample evidence that before the Great Storm of 1900—and even after—the occasional circus would winter in Galveston. Camels have always been a favorite for the circus, so it’s possible that they may have been part of the show. Knowing this, and knowing that camels are built for wandering, it’s also possible that a camel or two slipped out of their paddock and went on a foraging spree through Galveston’s neighborhoods. A wandering, rambling camel can do quite a bit of damage to shrubbery and back-yard gardens. That would, I can imagine, inspire a law against a loose camel.
2. A darker possibility has to do with the slave trade. There is record of at least one slaver who tried to hide her human cargo by importing something like 80 camels, whose distinctive smell would mask the distinctive odor of people. Humans were trapped below the decks, camels were corralled above. The coast guard, suspicious of the ploy, blocked the ship from docking in Galveston’s port. The ship’s captain, desperate to unload, essentially dumped the camels into the bay. Thank goodness, the bay is rather shallow because most of the camels made it to the shore. But again, a roaming camel isn’t something you want to see on your front porch.

I’m sad to say that the fate of both the humans and the camels is unknown, although an educated guess would remind us that it probably wasn’t a happy ending for either.

Like I said, this is conjecture. Maybe the law was the result of some other incident involving stray dromedaries. Regardless of the reason, the statute is still on the books. So, if you take your camel to Galveston, be sure you don’t let it off its leash.

Kathi Appelt is the author of the Newbery Honoree, National Book Award finalist, and bestselling The Underneath as well as the National Book Award Finalist The True Blue Scouts of Sugar Man Swamp, Maybe a Fox (with Alison McGhee), Keeper, and many picture books including Counting Crows and Mogie, the Heart of the House. She lives in College Station, Texas, with her husband and five gifted and talented cats.

 

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