During the three or four days which we spent at Samarra, a large quantity of German gun-ammunition arrived by raft from up-stream, and was carried by Arabs up the bank to the trollies. These rafts carry big loads; they are formed by a skeleton frame of wood on which is placed brushwood, the frame being supported by inflated skins which are tied to it. On reaching the end of a journey, the skins are deflated and sent back up the river to be used again. As there are rapids between Samarra and Bagdad, it was not possible to float the rafts right down to Bagdad, and consequently everything had to be transhipped to the railway. One night some large motors arrived, and went on at once by road towards Bagdad. Reports immediately circulated that Enver Pasha had arrived; but this cannot have been true. We had now learnt who our commandant on the journey was to be. He was a yuzbashi or captain, by name Elmey Bey, a little man with an enormous moustache, which made him look very fierce. He knew a very little French, and could therefore be approached without an interpreter. We did not really appreciate him until later. One morning he escorted a few of us over to the town; there was nothing to be seen except the mosque, and we were not allowed to look at this even from the gateway, much less to enter the courtyard. [Illustration: ELMEY BEY _(From a Water-colour Drawing by Lt. Browne)_] After making a few purchases, we went into an Arab cafe and partook of coffee and tea flavoured with citron. Elmey Bey would not let us pay for anything, and we thought it most hospitable of him. He said he would accept our hospitality another day. However, he eventually left the cafe without paying anything, and apparently the proprietor was really our unwilling host. The town seemed very deserted, many of the inhabitants being over on the other side, selling anything they could to the first batch of troops, who had reached Samarra that morning by rail, and were now camped in the open a little way above us. We were not allowed to go to see them, but one or two managed to get messages through, and an Indian clerk belonging to my regiment came to see us. He looked thin, and had evidently had a hard time. He said that on the way to Bagdad the guards had flogged men who fell out, to see if they were really ill, and that conditions as regards rations were pretty bad generally. None of our men, however, had succumbed so far, and, as many of the regiment had been anything but fit to start with, we hoped they would be able to stand it. We gave him a few little things in the way of eatables before he went back.