"The Dead Camel"

In: Overland Route; Part of our Paintings gallery

Date:
c.1850

Medium:
Watercolour on paper heightened with white bodycolour

Description:
On the long desert route, camels were used to supply water to the staging posts and stations, providing a livelihood for the camel-driver. The death of a camel was a terrible loss in these harsh subsistence conditions. (Taken from an album of thirty-one watercolours, recording the Diorama of the Overland Mail Route from Southampton to Calcutta, and presented to Brodie McGhie Willcox, one of the founding fathers of P&O.)