In December, Lieutenant Robert Dashwood, R.E., was appointed acting-adjutant at head quarters, to assist the brigade-major in the office and parade duties. This was the first appointment of the kind in the corps at Woolwich. Smart, strict in discipline, and exact in the performance of duty, he promised to advance the sappers to the high development attained in well-disciplined regiments, but his career of usefulness was suddenly cut short by disease of the heart, of which he died on the 21st September, 1839.[294] ----- Footnote 294: The names of the succeeding acting-adjutants at Woolwich will be found in the Appendix III. ----- In the summer of 1834 an expedition under the command of Colonel Chesney was projected, to ascertain the practicability of the Euphrates for opening a route by steam navigation to India. A detachment of the royal artillery and five men of the corps were appointed to it. One, sergeant Thomas Sim, was a surveyor, and the rest were smiths, and their qualifications in steam machinery, surveying, and drawing, had particular reference to the wants of the enterprise. When selected their names were submitted to the King.[295] For their military dress was substituted a plain blue suit, consisting of a slouched cap, frock coat with gilt buttons, and loose trousers, as more suitable to the climate of the East. The beard and moustache after the oriental fashion were also worn. ----- Footnote 295: Chesney’s ‘Expedition to the Euphrates,’ Pref. x. ----- In September the party was sent to the factory of Messrs. Laird and Co., at Birkenhead; and after receiving instructions in riveting and the management of steam engines, sailed on the 10th February, 1835, for Syria. Three of the party only landed; the other two having, by some mismanagement, returned to England from Malta. From the mouth of the Orontes to Bir, a distance of 145 miles, the three sappers, as well as the other soldiers and seamen, were employed in transporting the materials for the construction and armament of two steamers, across a country of varied and difficult features, intersected by a lake and two rapid rivers. Boilers of great weight were forced up hills, inch by inch, by means of screw-jacks; and through the unflagging exertions of officers and men, and their patient endurance of suffering and fatigue, was accomplished “one of the most gigantic operations of modern times.”[296] ----- Footnote 296: Chesney’s ‘Observations on Fire-arms,’ p. 197. -----