By far the best water here is made by the condenser at the head of the pier, and this is served out to the European regiments, who are camped rather nearer to it than the native regiments are. Filters remove to a certain extent the earthy taste, but they do not alter the saline. A more serious matter even than the badness of the water is the fact that the supply has several times within the last ten days been insufficient, and hundreds of animals have had to go to their work in the morning, or to their beds at night, without a drop of water. It is this which lays the foundation of the lung-diseases, fills our hospitals with sick animals, to say nothing of the suffering caused to them. When the Scinde Horse, with their numerous baggage-animals, have moved forward, it is to be hoped that the naval authorities will be able to supply a sufficiency of drinkable water for the rest of the camp. The party of engineers have just begun a work which, when completed, will enable a much larger amount of stores to be landed daily than can at present be accomplished. They are driving piles so as to lengthen the pier some twenty or thirty yards, and to form a pier-head, on all sides of which lighters and boats can lie alongside to unload instead of only at one side, as at present. The commissariat wharf is also making considerable progress, and when this and the new pier-head are completed, the amount of stores which can be daily landed will be very large. As it is, it is wonderful what immense quantities of stores are landed and sent up the pier in the trucks by the commissariat, quartermaster, transport train, and engineer departments. Many hands make light work, and there is abundance of labour here, and a boat comes alongside, and its contents are emptied and placed upon a railway-truck in a very few minutes. Were a double line laid down the pier—which was specially built for it—and two or three connections or crossings laid down, so that full trucks could go out, and empty ones come in without waiting for each other, the capacity of the pier would be vastly greater than it is. Why this is not done no one seems to know. With the abundance of labour at hand it might be made in a day without interfering with the working of the present line. A great improvement has taken place in the conveyance of the post between this and Senafe. Ponies are in readiness at the various stations, and the mails are taken up in two days. Things are in fact getting into order in all the branches of the service, and with the exception of the water-supply and the ridiculously-slow progress of the railway, there is little to be wished for. The Punjaub Pioneers, whose arrival I mentioned in my last letter, are an uncommonly fine body of men. Their loose cotton dress and dark claret-brown turbans, and their picks and shovels slung across their shoulders, in addition to their arms and accoutrements, give them the appearance of a corps ready for any work; and