We got away about 5 p.m., and nothing special happened till about 11 o'clock, when suddenly the escort became wildly excited, and dashed up and down; we were halted and told there were hostile Arabs about; the gendarmes fired off a few shots into the air, but nothing more occurred. All we could find to account for the disturbance was that one officer had lost his donkey, which had got loose and gone careering off to the side of the road. As it was a dark night, this may very likely have alarmed one or two of the gendarmes, who did not strike us as being men of valour.
Two hours later we halted, and, after a sketchy supper, soon got to sleep. In the morning, instead of remaining where we were for the day, as we had expected, we had to move on once more to the tune of "Yallah, yallah." After three hours or so we reached some low sand-hills, and amongst these found an unexpected stream, where we proceeded to camp. This stream, like so many more in this part of the world, was not pure water, but contained salts of various descriptions, said by the Turks to make the water bad for drinking. We drank steadily from this and other similar streams; and, luckily, for the most part, felt no ill effects.
That evening, we were again upon the road, our destination being Shilgat, a small Turkish post on the Tigris, which we were meeting once more. We arrived eventually about midnight, after a very wearisome march, and after a long wait were herded into the courtyard of the Turkish fort. When the kit had been sorted out, we were very soon asleep, the usual precautions being taken to see that boots were hidden under one's valise, or tied up in some way to prevent theft. As the Turkish troops were always badly off for footgear, boots were the articles most often stolen, and several pairs had disappeared in this way before we reached our journey's end. All were thoroughly tired out, and it had been decided that we would insist on a rest the following day. Great was our wrath, therefore, to find ourselves awakened again at dawn, and told we must move at once to another place. Phil May came in for more abuse, and lost his temper promptly. We settled down, eventually, in another enclosure not far away, where we had more room. Later on, we succeeded in our efforts to get a whole day's rest.