scattered at wide intervals
over the plain, these little columns of Englishmen, Highlanders,
Indians, and Gurkhas. The brigade pushed forward for a mile or two
without opposition, then little puffs of white smoke bursting in the
air showed that the Turk had opened the battle with salvoes of
shrapnel; the little columns quickly spread out into thin lines, and
our batteries trotted forward and were soon themselves engaged in
action. So far the scene had been clear in every detail, but now as
the day advanced, the dust from advancing batteries, the smoke and
mirage, formed a fog of war that telephones and signallers could only
in part dispel.

The mirage in Mesopotamia does not so much hide as distort the truth.
The enemy are seldom altogether hidden from view, the trouble is
rather to tell whether one is observing a cavalry patrol or an
infantry regiment, or if the object moving forward is not in reality a
sandhill or a bunch of reeds. The mirage here has certainly a strange
power of apparently raising objects above the ground-level. I remember
well from a camp near Falahiyah the Sinn Banks, which are perhaps
thirty feet above the plain, were quite invisible in the clear morning
air, but about noon they were easy to distinguish as a cloudy wall
swaying to and fro in the distant haze. Nor shall I forget the
instance of an officer who once assured me he had observed five Arab
horsemen within a mile of our column: we rode forward, and soon the
five shadowy horsemen gave place to five black crows hopping about by
the edge of the Suwaicha marsh. But the most curious illusion I have
seen in this way was looking towards the Pusht-i-Kuh hills across the
marsh from San-i-yat. The foothills, some thirty miles distant, had
sometimes the appearance of ending in abrupt white cliffs such as
one sees at Dover. The cause of this was a great number of dead fish
which had been stranded as the marsh receded, and their white bellies,
a mile away, gave the appearance of white cliffs to the base of the
Persian hills, which in reality slope very gradually down to the level
of the Tigris valley.

[Illustration: Arab Girl Labourers.]

[Illustration: The Barber.]

[Illustration: Washing Clothes.]

So in Mesopotamian battles, little can be trusted that is seen, and to
gain information of the enemy commanders are bound to rely on reports
by aeroplane, messengers, and telephones.

The battle now before us was to be fought over ground typical