閱讀筆記 Reading 4146 Lone Star Camels

Reading 4146 
Lone Star Camels
Have you ever heard of the U.S. Camel Corps? Keep reading to learn more about it!
l When you think of camels, where do you imagine they live? You probably picture them in the deserts of the Middle East, in countries like Egypt or Saudi Arabia. But those are not the only places camels have ever lived. In the second half of the 1800s, a group of camels lived in Texas!
2 How did camels end up so far from their homeland in the Middle East? In 1852, Jefferson Davis, U.S. Secretary of War, recommended that the army try using camels for carrying military provisions in the American Southwest. In 1855, Congress approved the use of $30,000 dollars for the first and only U.S. Camel Corps.
3 Later that year, several U.S. military personnel set sail for North Africa. They had a hard time finding available camels there, so they tried again in Malta, Greece, and Turkey. Finally, after learning much about camels, they landed in Egypt. When their ship sailed for home, it had a number of new passengers, 33 camels and 5 people to care for the animals and show American soldiers how to work with them.
4 The camels were taken to Camp Verde, near San Antonio, Texas. A year later, 41 more camels arrived. Although there were now more than 70 camels in the United States, they were not used often until the Camel Corps was assigned to explore some unfamiliar territory between El Paso and the Colorado River.
5 The camels proved themselves on this trip. They were tougher than the horses and the mules. When the expedition became lost, the soldiers’ camels led the people to water. The soldiers were overjoyed. The camels, however, could have continued on for several more days without any water.
6 Even though the camels had proved that they were useful to the military, there were still several problems. Some soldiers did not like the camels at all. They thought the animals were bad tempered. When the camels were irritated or annoyed by something, they reacted by kicking or spitting. They also had a very strong odor that the soldiers did not like. The odor caused other animals that were not used to being around camels to become skittish and upset.
7 Another problem was that the Camel Corps still was not used very often. It was seen as an unnecessary expense for the military. When the Civil War began, the camels were mostly forgotten. Some were sold to places like zoos or circuses. Others were eventually released into the desert.
8 By the mid-1860s, the U.S. Camel Corps no longer existed. Even so, camels still roamed through areas of Nevada, Idaho, Texas, California, and Arizona. The last confirmed sightings were during the early 1900s. Some people claim that camels still live in remote areas of the Southwest desert today, but no one has been able to prove it.

駱駝不止居住在沙漠或中東地區
在1852年，Jefferson Davis提出可將駱駝用在搬運軍隊物資上
因此歷經轉折
駱駝從沙漠被運到美國
當時的士兵因為駱駝能帶領他們找到水源而喜歡他們
但也存在著許多的問題
譬如當駱駝生氣或煩躁時會以踢人之類的舉動表達他們的不滿
而且駱駝身上有很重的怪味惹得一些士兵很不喜歡它們
另一個問題是軍隊並不經常性地使用駱駝
使得他們之後被漸漸遺忘
有的被賣到動物園或馬戲團
有的則是直接被送回沙漠
直到今天仍然有人認為世上還有駱駝是生活在非沙漠地區
卻沒有人能夠證明