A full two hours before the start, when the world is still blue with cold, travellers are summoned to leave their rest. Then the drivers begin to feed their ponies. When this is done they feed themselves. Then, leisurely, they load the baggage. Finally, when all seems ready, it occurs to somebody that it is impossible to leave before the cavalry escort is in saddle. "Ahmed Effendi" is called for. Everyone shouts for "Ahmed Effendi," who is sleeping soundly, like a sensible man. He wakes, and, to create a diversion perhaps, accuses a driver of stealing his chicken. The driver replies in suitable language. Meanwhile time passes. The disc of the sun cuts the horizon line of the desert, disclosing us all standing chill and cramped and bored and still unready. A pony has lain down in his harness, in an access of boredom, no doubt. A goat has stolen part of my scanty bread ration and is now browsing peacefully in the middle distance. Far away a cur is barking at the jackals. Some of our escort have retired to pray, others are still wrangling. Two or three are engaged in kicking the bored pony. After recovering from the goat my half-loaf, which is so much better than no bread in the desert, I watch with amazement the Turkish treatment of the pony. A skewer is produced and rammed into the unfortunate animal's left nostril. So barbarous does this seem that I am on the point of protesting, when suddenly the animal struggles to its feet, and stands shivering and wide-eyed and apparently well again. After the wound has been sponged and the pony given a few dates, it seems equal to fresh endeavour. The blood-letting has cleared its brain--and no wonder, poor beast. At length all seems ready. We climb into the _araba_. But we are not off yet. We sit for another hour while the drivers refresh themselves with a second breakfast. A rhyme keeps running through my frozen brain: "Slow pass the hours--ah, passing slow-- My doom is worse than anything Conceived by Edgar Allan Poe." But I did not realise then how lucky we were to be travelling by carriages at all. Nor did I realise what an honour it was to be presented to the local governors through whose districts we passed. It was only late in captivity, when merged in an undistinguished band of prisoners, that I understood the pomp and circumstance of our early days. Late in 1915 a prisoner was still a new sort of animal to the Turks. They were curious about us, and to some extent the curiosity was mutual. One kept comparing them with the descriptions in "Eoethen."