Venus, in her whitest robes, is shining resplendent over the Eastern horizon above my mud staircase. _February 15th._--I am feeling somewhat better, thank goodness. I hear that Pars Nip, the garrison gunner sub that came out from India with us, is in hospital with dysentery. There is quite a deal of sniping. A bullet whinged off a limber a few minutes ago. My candles are finished and I don't like sitting alone in a dug-out on a foggy evening without any sort of light. It suggests being buried alive. A shocking report is to hand concerning Don Juan. During the last two days he has taken advantage of the cold weather to eat three successive blankets, four jhuals, and his companion's head-collar. I suggest turning him loose in the dismantled hospital camp on the _maidan_, now a wilderness dotted with rotten tents. Some horses have commenced to eat their tails and are not above snapping at their mates' tails if they get a chance. It's great fun watching them all on the qui vive sparring for an opening to attack one another's tail, or cover, or head collar. Don has even gnawed his wooden peg to chips and swallowed most of them. _February 16th._--This morning we had a heavy artillery duel. Fritz, the Turkish planist, flew over several times but did not bomb. He is evidently observing. His plane proved to be an old pattern Morane and is certainly very fast. I have been for a little walk in the trenches. I felt awfully groggy and returned to R. L. Stevenson's "Silverado Squatters," which rings so very true even in a Mesopotamian dug-out. In this volume Robert Louis, without the addition of the terrible occurrences so dear to the sensational writer, and so rare to the lives of most of us, has left the beauty of simplicity unadorned.