In 1835, attempts were made to turn the enduring powers of the camel to gun-draught. Arguing on the fact that the animal had in former times been employed in draught, and that in the present day he is used in the plough in the Hurrianah and other sandy districts, Major Pew made many experiments, and at length succeeded so far, that Government authorized a battery to be fitted for this draught at Dehli, and it was placed under the command of Captain W. Anderson. Its first performances, when with the camp of the Commander-in-Chief, appeared to promise well—so well, indeed, that on the formation of the Army of the Indus, it was attached to it under the command of Captain A. Abbott. In the field, however, it did not keep up its character; while the ground was smooth and sandy, the camels worked well, but in moist or slippery soil they were continually liable to accidents, and in ground intersected by trenches they were peculiarly awkward; at all times they were found deficient in muscular exertion, weight constituting their sole power of traction; and when the work became hard, and food scarce, they knocked up completely and suddenly, without any warning; and on the army moving from Candahar towards Ghuznee, the camels were replaced by the horse and yaboo of the country. A second battery, which proceeded to Scinde in 1843, fared no better. A third, stationed at Nusseerabad, seems to answer for cantonment duties, but we believe has not been tried in any other way. The result of the experiments appears to be, that though the camel will answer as gun-draught in particular localities, he will not do for a battery which is liable to move in all directions. The war in Afghanistan forced on the Government the necessity of improving their field-artillery, and as a commencement, a battery on the frontier was supplied with cast horses from the horse artillery and cavalry; but on the apparent termination of the war in 1840, with a view to economy, these horses were withdrawn and replaced, with much delay, with bullocks, leaving the frontier, on which our dubious friends the Sikhs could in a week have mustered 100,000 men and 200 pieces of artillery, with no other artillery than one or two 6–pounder troops of horse artillery, and this battery ill equipped with bullocks and drivers from the Commissariat; and such was its state when the Afghan reverses broke upon India like a clap of thunder.