The Tigris lay far below. The cry was taken up in Hindustani "pani," "pani." It travelled down the column giving hope to the faltering. The village was still three miles off. Then a thunderstorm with heavy rain broke over us. The beautiful water soaked on to our skin. We loved it. An hour or so afterwards we reached Shergat, that in old times was Asshur--the Assyrian capital of the 13th century, B.C. The excavations enabled us to see something of the life of that ancient town. There seemed much Roman work there, too. In the first hour we drank and drank and drank again, and then got into the river, sick men and all, to let the glorious element caress us once again. Then we settled down for sleep among donkeys, drivers, and Turks, the bearers flourishing pots all round us. The better rooms on the balcony and first floor were for senior officers. I was feeling very weakened and could not sleep for pain in my spine, but hoped to get through as the waterless march was over. Malaria returned the second night, and with a temperature of 105° I heard we were off. I felt appallingly unsteady and my head throbbed to every movement of the donkey, as it does in such cases. I was lucky to have any donkey at all, because some of the native orderlies having lost their own donkeys clean shaved most of the others, thus erasing the letters that had been cut out of the hair of the animal. Wild and high raged many a conflict over donkeys. I found mine had been re-branded and was claimed by another. At the last moment I managed to get a tiny animal from an Arab water-carrier for my last money. Once again we filed out to the setting sun past Bedouin camps. We crossed some heavy water-courses, and more than one humorous event occurred thereat. To see a colonel seated on a diminutive donkey that stuck midstream, refusing to budge either forward or backward while the water gradually climbed up the angry colonel's breeches, was quite entertaining. In such cases a fat Turk or Arab would seize the animal's nose while the others pushed the beast or the colonel from behind. I remember that on one such occasion a very "bobbery" major rode a donkey that had conceived an affection for mine, and always followed my little beast. So when we stuck midstream the major's beast stopped also, and, less lucky than I, his animal happened to have stopped on some quicksand so that when finally my beast was got to move the major's could not. The whole four of us were equally put out. I suggested later that we should exchange donkeys, but as I had only a slight lien on my animal the major disagreed.