Our Commandant, Fauad Bey, has been in a most obstreperous and belligerent mood for days. He allowed our senior officer, Colonel Cummings, to remain and fish at the latter's request at the first camp out of Mosul on the understanding that he would follow with his escort the same night. The colonel turned up some days later, and whatever misunderstanding there was, Fauad considered his kindness abused, and made the whole column suffer with regulations and restrictions. At Demir Kapu we finished the most strenuous march I have ever done. It was a dry, waterless stretch of forty kilometres over parched ground with not even salt springs _en route_. Again and again we had nothing left but the will to go on. My donkey collapsed, and with difficulty I got him to a swamp of foul slime in which, besides many bones, were the half-picked skeletons of two donkeys that had apparently been drowned in their attempt to get water. So dry and thirsty were the animals that most of them rushed into the slimy pool up to their backs and then subsided, kit and all, into the mud. We extricated them, and having drunk our fill also of slime, we set out for the last few miles. This water was green and filled with germs, but one's experience had pretty well inoculated one by this time. Our thirst was not to be denied. One's soul was hot within one and one's tongue dry and hard. With our limit of transport there was no alternative, and most of us had had no money wherewith to buy "mussocks" (waterskins). The column reached out for miles. Even our guard were quite done. At length we reached Demir Kapu (iron gates), where a cool translucent stream runs through some rocks, and we drank and bathed, and some having slept began to fish. At our next halting-place a dust-storm descended on our camp in the night. I have been in dust-storms in various places, but this was of a new order. With a roar like thunder a deluge of sand fell upon us, travelling terrifically fast. It tore down bivouacs, carried off tents and valises, pulled up picketing pegs, and rolled even heavy pots hundreds of yards off, where they were buried in the sand and many lost. We could not stand against it any more than against an incoming tide. It lasted for some minutes. One buried one's head and lay with all one's weight on one's kit. I understand how people are often suffocated in these storms, as even this was quite long enough. My chief loss was my topee, for which I looked long in the dark and even walked along the river to within a few yards of an Arab village to see if it had been carried down. The next day my improvised headgear of a towel proved inadequate, and I went down with an awful attack of sunstroke. Our medical officer allowed me to ride some of the way in the ambulance cart, as my temperature, he said, was quite high. Thanks to his kindness and attention and wet cloths I picked up enough to walk a little. I arrived at Nisibin feeling very ill and feverish.