passenger transport on the canals and rivers of this region. It may be rowed, sculled, or paddled, and since it is of fairly stable equilibrium, the men are not long in mastering it. The gufa, however, is quite another matter. It is a slightly flattened ball of woven reeds covered with pitch, having a hole from five to ten feet across at the top to receive passengers and freight. It is propelled by paddling, now on one side, now on the other, and two or three old hands can make very fair progress with it. A novice, however, can do little more than make the thing spin on its own axis. Moreover, he invariably renders himself still more helpless by laughing at his own uselessness; and although some of the more serious-minded Sepoys have made considerable progress in handling the gufa, I am afraid we shall never be able to make Thomas Atkins, or his equally frivolous comrade-in-arms, the Ghurka, take it as other than a perpetual joke.

“A score of miles to the north of here, a few days ago, a dozen dismounted troopers, in lieu of anything better to hand, tried to cross a broad back channel of the Shat-el-Arab in a gufa, in order to dislodge some troublesome Turkish snipers. Their best efforts, however, served only to send the contrary craft bobbing down their own bank, the finest kind of a mark for the enemy’s sharpshooters. The latter (I have this on the word of the sergeant whose misplaced enthusiasm was responsible for the trouble), evidently highly amused, held their fire until after the ‘marines,’ as they have since been dubbed by their comrades, had kicked a hole in the bottom of the gufa and been compelled to take to the water. The few scattering shots fired even then were apparently sent only with the intent of ‘shooing’ several belligerent Tommies back to their own side, for the only casualty reported was the drowning of a man who, in the language of one of his surviving comrades, ‘caught ’is bloomin’ spur in the bally goofy an’ got ’eld under water.’

“Which incident reminds me to say a word for our old friend, the Turk, as a sporting fighter. Of course, we knew all the time that he was a first-class offensive fighter and a superlative defensive one; but, because for years we have known him under such characterisations as ‘The Terrible,’ and ‘The Unspeakable,’ we had come to expect from him a programme of ‘frightfulness’ quite in keeping with that of his allies of the Occident. That nothing of this character has been in evidence is one of the most refreshing surprises of the campaign. I can only set down here one of a number of instances in point which have fallen under my observation.

“You doubtless read in the papers that the Turks made an attempt in some force to recover Bassorah a few weeks ago, going by boats to Nasire, on the Euphrates, and marching from there around the inundation area to approach this point from the west. Fortunately, one of our ‘friends’ sent us word of what was afoot, and we were able to prepare a proper reception at Shaiba. It was after we had beaten them back at this point, and while they were fighting rearguard actions in a most cleverly conducted retreat, that the incident I have in mind occurred. I was out with, though not in command of, a troop of cavalry which was pressing the pursuit a considerable distance ahead of our main force. About eleven o’clock in the morning we found our way blocked by a small detachment of the enemy which had been left to make a stand at an isolated khan, one of those walled desert halting-places of the caravanserai order,—really more of a fort than a tavern.

“There was no use in trying to dislodge the Turks until the guns came up, but, unluckily, about a dozen chaps, out of touch with their officer, attempted to rush the gate ’on their own.’ The enemy coolly let them come on to about a hundred yards from the khan, and then, unmasking a machine-gun, dropped them all in a space not fifty feet square. A rifle volley brought down the three or four reckless spirits who, in spite of wounds, staggered to their feet and lurched ahead. Taking advantage of the cover afforded by a pair of old canal banks, we managed to get up within about three hundred yards of the khan gate without exposing ourselves dangerously, there to wait for our field guns and to be ready to make it lively for our Turkish friends in case they tried to evacuate in the meantime.

“For a while we thought that, mercifully, no life remained in any of the still, sprawling brown figures in front of the khan; but presently, with his face covered with the dirt a sniper’s bullet had thrown on it as he put his head up for a look, a man crawled back to report to Major S—— that he had seen a hand feebly raised as though trying to attract our attention. Verifying the truth of the statement at the risk of his big new shikar helmet, S—— promptly called for volunteers to try to bring the wounded man in. ‘It’s a slim chance,’ he said, ‘but this noonday sun would kill an unwounded man lying on his face for an hour out there. We’ve got to make the attempt.’

“Passing down the line, S—— picked the four spryest and wiriest looking of the sprawling row of grimy Tommies, each of whom had raised an appealing hand as the word for volunteers passed along. ‘Make the best of the cover of that strip of date-palms, and bring in the man—he’s the one nearest us—the same way,’ he ordered just about as he would have sent them out on patrol. ‘We’ll give the Turks what diversion we can in the meantime.’

“Then we began peppering the ports of the old khan in a blind and large sort of way that had little effect, as a consequence of the fact that the machine-gun fire which came in reply made it impossible to put our heads up to aim. Enough of a diversion was created, however, to allow the volunteers to make their way, apparently unobserved, to the farther end of the palm clump. But a hail of bullets met them as they left cover, and the last of them dropped while he was still a dozen yards from the object of his rush. The three first to fall lay still,—shot dead, as we learned later,—but the last one, in spite of a punctured femur, presently pulled himself together and began to crawl forward. It was not until this moment, I am certain, that the Turks fully comprehended what we were driving at; for now, although they continued to keep us under cover with sweeping jets from their machine-gun, not another shot was directed at the man on the ground. Nor was there any attempt to check his painful progress as he dragged the man he had been sent after back to the palm grove. Nor yet, finest of all, did the Turks try to wing a single one of another brave four, who, disdaining the cover of the palm trunks, dashed out to relieve their comrade of his burden.

“Encouraged by the forbearance of the enemy, we were about to send out a squad under a white flag to see if any more of the wounded were alive, when dust clouds on the southern horizon warned the Turkish leader that our field-guns were coming up; and, with his task of delaying the pursuit well fulfilled, he made ready to retire by sweeping our cover with a fresh fusillade. The only gate of the khan, opening to the south, was completely covered from our position; but the resourceful Turk coolly breached the northern wall with a flake or two of gun-cotton, and, the first thing we knew, the whole troop—machine-gun and all—went scurrying off across the desert. For two or three minutes they were fair marks for us, and, as they sent several Parthian volleys themselves, there was no military