_March 16th._--It is a beautiful day, warm and sunny, and the only blur on the silvery brightness is the muddied Tigris winding like a yellow ribbon over this flat desert land. I felt so weak during my walk yesterday that to-day I merely strolled about the "gardens." It was a fine sunset. Away over the muddy plain the Western skies were dragon-red, and clouds stirred by the evening breeze sailed in and out of the luminous belt which reflected a soft pink on the face of the rising moon climbing over the Eastern horizon. I stale-mated a game of chess. Also received a gift of three brace of starlings that are the veriest God-send for the seedy. _March 17th._--We had an extraordinary breakfast of kedjereed tinned salmon Square-Peg brought with him. Cockie's temperature is increasing and ought to be diminished. I played patience a little, which I can't stick for long. There are not many books circulating. _March 18th._--Another beautiful day! I stale-mated a game of chess with Square-Peg, and then had a walk round the trenches almost up to the Fort. There is an old disused trench skirting the river on the eastern side, where we sat in a hidden nook and let the cool breeze from the river play on our feverish dank foreheads. Grass is beginning to grow in patches here and there on the _maidan_; and here and there a truant mule did himself well behind the _bund_. Presently the Turks or Arabs spotted us, and we reluctantly had to leave the blissful spot. Rumour says that the Turks have some new 7·5-inch guns coming. If so, the damage done will be ten times what it has been. And if they only had high-explosive shell the smashing up of the fort wall and the town would be a very short affair. A bombardier of the 76th Battery, an excellent lad, has just died of wounds from the aeroplane's bomb. I remember upholding him in a matter of duty once. Every day some one goes, either from wounds or sickness. And so far as we know the end is not yet. _March 19th._--Rheumatics bad again. They remind me I lived in feet of water in my earthy dug-out during the floods, even my bed sopping wet. However, in the heat of the day the aching is less intense. More serious are the increasing cases of enteritis everywhere in Kut. I believe this is essentially a siege malady. The symptoms are violent pains in the intestines and a wish to vomit. It is, I hear, due to bad and insufficient nourishment. I know many who have already succumbed, but so far in my case these pains have been rather stomach than abdominal. A bombardment started while I was in the gardens, and I hastened back to Cockie's observation post. It lasted the best part of an hour.