which, having broken their head-ropes, had gone out into the plain to seek a living on their own account. For these there was no water; they had no requisition pinned to their ears, and as they failed thus scandalously to comply with the regulations laid down by the authorities, the authorities determined that they should have no water. They were beaten off. Most of them, after a repulse or two, went away with drooping heads to die; but some fought for their dear lives, cleared a way to the trough with heels and teeth, and drank despite the blows which were showered upon them. I inquired of the Land Transport Corps why these scattered mules are not collected and fed. I am told that nearly the whole of these mule- and camel-drivers have deserted and gone to Massowah. And so it is. The mules and camels are dying of thirst and neglect; the advanced brigade cannot be supplied with food; the harbour is becoming full of transports, because there are no means of taking the men inland, although there are plenty of animals; and all this because the land transport men desert. The officers of that corps work like slaves; they are up early and late, they saddle mules with their own hands, and yet everything goes wrong. Why is all this? One reason undoubtedly is, that the animals have been sent on before the men. A few officers and a comparatively small body of native followers are sent out, and to them arrive thousands of bullocks, thousands of mules, thousands of camels. The Arab followers, appalled by the amount of work accumulating upon them, desert to a man, the officers are left helpless. Had a fair number of officers and followers been sent on to receive the animals as they came, all might have gone well. It was simply a miscalculation. And so it is, I regret to say, in some other departments. You apply for a tent, and are told there are no bell-tents whatever arrived. You ask for a pack-saddle, and are told by the quartermaster-general that there is not a single pack-saddle in hand, and that hundreds of mules are standing idle for want of them. You ask for rations, and are informed that only native rations have yet arrived, and that no rations for Europeans have been sent, with the exception of the sixty days’ provisions the 33d regiment have brought with them. Why is this? There are scores of transports lying in Bombay harbour doing nothing. Why, in the name of common sense, are they not sent on? The nation is paying a very fair sum for them, and there they lie, while the departments are pottering with their petty jealousies and their petty squabbles.