While organization of camel caravans varied over time and the territory traversed,
Owen Lattimore's account of caravan life in northern China in the 1920s gives a good idea of what camel transport is like. In his
Desert Road to Turkestan he describes mostly camel caravans run by
Han Chinese and
Hui firms from eastern China (
Hohhot,
Baotou) or
Xinjiang (
Qitai (then called Gucheng),
Barkol), plying the routes connecting those two regions through the
Gobi Desert by way of
Inner (or, before Mongolia's independence,
Outer) Mongolia. Before Outer Mongolia's effective independence of China (circa 1920) the same firms also ran caravans into
Urga,
Uliassutai, and other centers of Outer Mongolia, and to the Russian border at
Kyakhta, but with the creation of an international border, those routes came into decline. Less important caravan routes served various other areas of northern China, such as most centers in today's
Gansu,
Ningxia, and northern
Qinghai. Some of the oldest
Hohhot-based caravan firms had a history dating to the early
Qing dynasty. Caravans originating from both ends of the Hohhot-Gucheng route were composed of two-humped
Bactrian camels, suitable for the climate on the area, although very occasionally one could see single-humped
dromedaries brought to this route by
Uighur ("Turki", in Lattimore's parlance) caravan people from
Hami A caravan would be normally composed of a number of files (,
lian), of up to 18 camels each. Each of the rank-and-file caravan men, known as the
camel-pullers (,
la luotuo-de), was in charge of one such file. On the march, the camel-puller's job was to lead the first camel of his file by a rope tied to a peg attached to its nose, each of the other camels of the file being led by means of similar rope by the camel in front of it. Two files (
lian) formed a
ba, and the camel-pullers of the two files would help each other when loading cargo on the camels at the beginning of each day's march or unloading it when halted. To do their job properly camel-pullers had to be experts on camels: as Lattimore comments, "because there is no good doctoring known for him [a camel] when he is sick, they must learn how to keep him well." Taking care of camels' health included the ability to find the best available grazing for them and keeping them away from poisonous plants; knowledge of when one should not allow a camel to drink too much water; how to park camels for the night, allowing them to obtain the best possible shelter from wind-blown snow in winter; how to properly distribute the load to prevent it from hurting the animal; and how to treat minor injuries of the camels, such as blisters or pack-sores. The loading of camels was described by
Mildred Cable and
Francesca French in their book
Through Jade Gate and Central Asia (1927): «In the loading of a camel its grumblings commence as the first bale is placed on its back, and continue uninterruptedly until the load is equal to its strength, but as soon as it shows signs of being in excess, the grumbling ceases suddenly, and then the driver says: "Enough! put no more on this beast!"» salt caravan practiced by
Tuareg traders in the
Sahara desert. The French reported that the 1906 caravan numbered 20,000 camels.
Caravan people A caravan could consist of 150 or so camels (8 or more files), with a camel-puller for each file. Besides the camel-pullers the caravan would also include a
xiansheng (先生, literally, "Sir", "Mister") (typically, an older man with a long experience as a camel-puller, now playing the role of a general manager), one or two cooks, and the caravan master, whose authority over the caravan and its people was as absolute as that of a captain on a ship. If the owner of the caravan did not travel with the caravan himself, he would send along a
supercargo — the person who will take care of the disposal of the freight upon arrival, but had no authority during the journey. The caravan could carry a number of paying passengers as well, who would alternate between riding on top of a camel load and walking.
Cargo Typical cargo carried by the caravans were commodities such as wool, cotton fabrics, or tea, as well as miscellaneous manufactured goods for sale in Xinjiang and Mongolia. Opium was carried as well, typically by smaller, surreptitious, caravans, usually in winter (since in the hot weather opium would be too easily detected by the smell). More exotic loads could include
jade from
Khotan, elk
antlers prized in
Chinese medicine, or even dead bodies of the
Shanxi caravan men and traders, who happened to die while in Xinjiang. In the latter case, the bodies had been first "temporarily" buried in Gucheng in light-weight coffins, and when, after three or so years in the grave the flesh had been mostly "
consumed away", the merchant guild sent the bodies to the east by a special caravan. Due to the special nature of the load, higher freight rate was charged for such "dead passengers". Camels have been historically used to traffic illicit drugs among their legal trade goods. With camel meat being illegal in some places, camels themselves are smuggled. In India, ritual sacrifice and common slaughter has fueled camel smuggling.
Speed According to Lattimore's diary, caravan travel in Inner Mongolia did not always follow a regular schedule. Caravans traveled or camped at any time of day or night, depending on weather, local conditions, and the need for rest. Since the caravan traveled at the walking speed of the men, the distance made in a day (a "stage") was usually between , depending on road and weather conditions, and distances between water sources. On occasions several days were spent in a camp without going forward, due to bad weather. A one-way trip from
Hohhot to
Gucheng ( by Lattimore's reckoning) could take anything from three to eight months. Smaller caravans owned by Mongols of the
Alashan (the westernmost Inner Mongolia) and manned by Han Chinese from
Zhenfan, were able to make longer marches (and, thus, cover longer distances faster) than the typical Han Chinese or Hui caravans, because the Mongols were able to always use "fresh" camels (picked from their large herd for just a single journey), every man was provided with a camel to ride, and loads were much lighter than in the "standard" caravans (rarely exceeding . These caravans would typically travel by day, from sunrise to sunset. Such a camel train is described in the accounts of the journey made by
Peter Fleming and
Ella Maillart in the Gobi Desert in the mid-1930s.
Logistics Inns called
caravanserai were spread along the route of a long caravan journey. These roadside inns specialized in catering to travelers along established trade routes, such as the
Silk Road and the
Royal Road. Because such long trade routes often passed through inhospitable desert regions, journeys would be impossible to complete successfully and profitably without caravanserai to provide necessary supplies and assistance to merchants and travelers. It was necessary for camels to spend at least two months between long journeys to recuperate, and the best time for that recuperation was in June–July, when camels shed their
hair and the grazing is best. Therefore, the best practice was for a caravan to leave
Hohhot in August, just after the grazing season; upon reaching Gucheng, weaker camels could stay there until the next summer by grazing whatever vegetation is available in winter, while the stronger ones, after a few weeks of recovery on a grain diet (grain being cheaper in Xinjiang than in eastern China), would be sent back in late winter/early spring, taking along plenty of grain for fodder, and returning to Hohhot before the next grazing season. Vice versa, one could leave Hohhot in the spring, spend the summer grazing season in Xinjiang, and come back in the late fall of the same year. Either way, it would be possible for the caravan people and their best camels to make a full round trip within a year. However, such perfect scheduling was not always possible, and it was often the case that a caravan sent out from Hohhot in August would end up staying on the other end of the route until and through the next grazing season, coming back to Hohhot about a year and a half after its departure. Since camels moult in the summer, camel owners received additional income from collecting several pounds of
hair their animals dropped during the summer grazing (and shedding season); in northern China, the camel hair trade started around the 1880s. Later, caravan men learned the art of
knitting and
crocheting from the defeated
White Russians (in exile in Xinjiang after the
Russian Civil War) and the items they had made were transported to eastern China by camel caravan. Although the hair shed by the camels or picked from them was of course considered the property of the camel owners, caravan workers were entitled to make use of some hair for making knitwear for themselves (mostly socks) or for sale.
Lattimore in 1926 observed camel-pullers "knitting on the march; if they ran out of
yarn, they would reach back to the first camel of the file they were leading, pluck a handful of hair from the neck, and roll it in their palms into the beginning of a length of yarn; a weight was attached to this, and given a twist to start it spinning, and the man went on feeding wool into the thread until he had spun enough yarn to continue his knitting". == Cultural associations==