so astrachan--the skin of
unborn lambs--in the bazaar. The old copper vessels that were sold in
many of the shops were sometimes very beautiful.

The suspected cholera case proving doubtful, we were put out of
quarantine next morning, and moved across the river to the site of the
hospital which we were to take over. It lay round a bend in the river on
the right bank above and well out of the town. To the north lay the
river, to the south the desert. A large number of mud and reed huts, in
long rows, stood on the plain, covering an area of about a quarter of a
square mile. These were the wards. There was a sense of space that was
refreshing after the cramped and littered area of the clearing at
Basra, with its surrounding marshes and palm groves. We officers were
put in tents in a small palm and pomegranate thicket at the periphery of
the hospital area. The nursing quarters were at the other end, nearer
the town. These quarters were built of wood and low roofed, with a layer
of mud on the top. The nurses were in many cases volunteers who had seen
service in Mudros, and these had just got the Royal Red Cross Medal,
equivalent to a D.S.O. Very pleased they were with it, and greatly they
deserved it. Their quarters were divided by thin mud walls into narrow
compartments, and they found the lack of sound-deadening properties
trying. But that is a universal experience of this war--the continual
overhearing of conversation, the necessity for being in a crowd, and the
lack of moments of privacy. They slept out of doors, on the river front,
in a wired enclosure, patrolled by a sentry. The sentries were a
peculiarity of the place which distinguished it from Basra. For in that
region looters came in from the desert, some from the villages and some
from camps of nomad Arabs. Their great ambition was firearms. The second
ambition seemed to be clothing. There must exist somewhere a complete
colony of khaki-clad Arabs, of all ranks up to Staff officers, probably
in some district Persia-way, in the Pashtikhu hills. They were extremely
daring. They would come in at night on horseback, leave their horses out
on the plain and stroll in under the sentries' noses. For many months a
spirit of compromise was shown in the matter, but eventually a stronger
line was taken and the Sheiks of the surrounding country were put under
the penalty of a heavy fine if looting continued. Occasionally men were
stabbed by these marauders, who carried long, cu