ould have been little good waking in the
middle of the affair, although one slept with a revolver under the
sheet, when a watching Arab stood over one, knife in hand. After this
some strong action was taken and the Sheiks, as I have mentioned, were
fined. There was also a little affair of stern punishing round Nasireyah
that had a wholesome effect which spread as far as Amara. It is the only
way to deal with the Arabs of this generation.

Apart from looting, the great danger that continually threatened us was
fire. All the buildings were constructed of extremely inflammable
material. There was no fire apparatus, save buckets. The canvas of the
tents became so dry in the sun that a spark caused a conflagration. On
one occasion an officer's tent caught fire at night. A burst of flames
enveloped the canvas in a moment and the occupants, who were asleep,
barely escaped. It was impossible to remove the articles inside the
tent. Fortunately, the tent was in an isolated part, and only the
surrounding palm trees suffered. But if a fire had really started in the
main portion of the hospital, the whole place would have been gutted in
a twinkling. On one night a great glare arose from the river and it
seemed as if Amara was in flames. A series of tremendous explosions
followed. It was an ammunition barge somewhere in the stream that had
suddenly blazed up. It was towed away to a safer place, but if the
sparks that showered through the air had set fire to any house along the
Tigris front, the entire town might have been in ruins by the morning.

[Illustration: THE TIGRIS NEAR KURNA.]

During August scurvy was threatening the men at the front. Many Indians
went down with it. It is an unpleasant disorder. The gums looked as if
they were blown out like little pneumatic tyres. They were
reddish-purple, ulcerated, and the stench was oppressive. Hard, woodeny
swellings appeared on the legs, and the victim became very decrepit. One
of the main preoccupations in the wards was the differential diagnosis
between atypical malaria and typhoid fever, for the malaria that one
reads of in textbooks did not exist save exceptionally. A man had an
irregular temperature for days and it was often extremely difficult to
give a name to the cause. Fortunately one had the assistance of a
pathological laboratory, where blood could be examined and treated. In
general, the typhoid cases were consistently heavy and depressed, while
the malaria cases had spe