te-palms, it is
fifteen months since I have seen a tree of any kind; it is fifteen
months since I have seen a house or lain under a roof; and this girl
coming towards me with hesitating steps, clothed in rags and patches,
this little date-seller with her pale face and dark eyes, her empty
basket resting on her small, well-shaped head--this is the first woman
I have seen or spoken to for more than a year.'

Perhaps it is the twilight which gives a feeling of mystery and beauty
unknown in the glare and noise of midday, and I hardly know, as the
Tigris seems to lose itself in the evening mists, above which the
golden minarets of Kazimain still shine and glitter in the setting
sun, whether I am truly in the land of reality or if I still linger
but half awake in the realm of dreams and fancies, where stand the
gates of horn and ivory.

[Illustration: The Transport Officer.]

[Illustration: Captain R. MACFARLANE, M.C. Killed In Action.]

[Illustration: Arabs Bargaining On The Tigris Banks With Troops Going
Up River. A brisk trade is done in eggs and fowls.]

For to how many during the past two years has not flashed the dream of
the capture of this city, Dar-al-Salam, the City of Security? And of
those who have seen the vision, how many have wondered from which gate
the dream has issued, and how many have been filled with confidence?
For that vision has drawn many thousands from Basrah and Amarah--many
who are now here in the hour of victory, many who now lie where they
fell on the field of battle, and many who are still prisoners and
captives.

A few days ago, as the columns of the Army of Mesopotamia were
hurrying past the great Arch of Ctesiphon, it was impossible not to
think of the ---- Division arriving there some eighteen months
earlier--that gallant ---- Division, war-worn and depleted in numbers
but ever victorious, who found at Ctesiphon, in the hour of their last
and most glorious victory, the beginning of their undoing and tragic
end.

What dream was it of a captured city, of a City of Security, that
lured them to their doom, and who was the first dreamer? And who next
saw the second dream of fresh battalions and a new organisation that
would lead without fail to Baghdad, and had the gift to know that this
dream, unlike the other, had passed through the gate of horn?

So I mused but a week ago in the palm groves that had been ringing
that very morning with rifle-shots, but seemed so quiet and peaceful
in