lashed them about considerably. In the
meanwhile the strange column galloped up. But there were no guns. In
place of guns stood a strangely assorted collection of wagons, spring
carts, tongas--anything on wheels--that a certain doctor had got
together and brought up at full speed to take away the wounded. The
Turkish Commander, Suleiman Askari, committed suicide.

[Illustration: DONKEY LABOUR IN THE HEAT OF THE DAY.]

A New Zealander came into hospital one day from Shaiba way. He was a
wireless man, and being so, had found something in the desert that
puzzled the science of his mind. He explained the matter. Out there it
is a white, undulating expanse, burning hot, but with more air than in
Basra. There are extraordinary effects of perspective. A man standing a
short way off may assume gigantic proportions, or look like a dwarf. A
motor car near by would seem to lose its solidity and dissolve into a
few filmy lines. The mirage of water is everywhere. An Arab might lie in
the open and no one would see him. A post might look like a horseman at
full gallop. It was a country of topsy-turveydom as regards the
subjective estimate of the eyes. But what puzzled the wireless man was
this. He thought he understood how eye-strain and difference of
refractive power of the layers of heated air, or reflected light from
the ground and such physical considerations could cause these illusions.
But what he could not understand was how it came about that several men
would experience exactly the same illusion. Why should a post
simultaneously appear as an Arab on horseback or an Arab crawling
stealthily on the ground to half a dozen men? Mirage, like Rumour, is a
curious thing. It may have some inner connection with the set of a
man's feelings. It has its pleasant side when it paints water and palms
where there is no water nor any palms. It has its sinister side when it
clothes the most innocent features of the landscape in images of dread.
Who knows how it touched up that flying column of ambulance wagons in
the eyes of the Turks? There are certain areas that are constantly the
site of mirage. Our gunners found this a continual difficulty at the
front, for the hostile Arabs, knowing the mirage areas, would get into
them and make ranging impossible. A transport column on the move through
mirage is a curious sight. You see, across the plain, a long line of
black dots, which are the wagons on the move. But apparently they are
passing throug