Sollum, the frontier post, was garrisoned by a small detachment of the Egyptian army and the Coastguards, native troops with two or three English officers. In August, 1915, the crews of two English submarines, wrecked on the coast west of Sollum, were fired upon by the Senussi, but Sayed Ahmed apologized and declared that he did not know what nationality the men were. In the autumn it was known that the British attempt at Gallipoli was doomed; there was a danger of disturbances in Egypt, and the Turks attacked the Suez Canal. On November 5th the _Tara_, an armed patrol boat, was torpedoed off Sollum. Three of her boats came ashore a few miles west of the frontier, and ninety-two men of the crew were captured by some Senussi Arabs and carried inland to a place called Bir Hakim, a well which lies about seventy miles south of the coast; here they were kept prisoners for several months, and during this time they suffered the most excessive privations at the hands of their captors. They were so badly fed that they were forced to eat snails, which are very plentiful in some parts of the desert; several men died, and their attempts to escape were in all cases unsuccessful. The history of their sufferings and adventures forms the subject of two books written by one of the survivors on his return home. Even after this incident Sidi Ahmed continued to protest his friendship for the British, and disclaimed any knowledge of the whereabouts of the _Tara_’s crew. About this time large numbers of Arabs began to collect on the high desert above Sollum. The garrison was slightly reinforced and some armoured cars came up the coast from Egypt. On November 23rd Sollum was attacked by a numerous force of Senussi, armed with a miscellaneous collection of fire-arms and some old guns. The garrison was evacuated on to the _Rasheed_, an Egyptian gunboat, during a heavy sand-storm, and on the same day the garrison of Barrani was taken down the coast on another boat. They landed at Matruh, which was put into a state of defence, and the garrison was very soon considerably augmented by British troops who were hurried up from Alexandria in trawlers and in cars from the railhead. A few days after they arrived at Matruh some of the men of the Egyptian Coastguards went over to the enemy, and Colonel Snow Bey, of the Coastguards, was shot while speaking to some so-called friendly Arabs on a reconnaissance. Colonel Snow and Major Royle, another officer of the Coastguards who lost his life later in the war, after joining the Flying Corps, were both very well known on the Western Desert. As a rule, the bedouins do not talk much of the Englishmen who lived and served among them, but even now, several years later, one constantly hears these two names mentioned round the camp fires of the Arabs.