"In February the ration was a pound of barley-meal bread and a pound and a quarter of mule or horse flesh. In March the ration was reduced to half a pound of bread and a pound of flesh. In April it was four ounces of bread and twelve ounces of flesh, which was the allowance operative at the time of the surrender. The food problem was made more difficult by the Indian troops, who because of their religion refused to eat flesh, fearing they would break the rules of their caste by doing so. "When ordinary supplies were diminished a sacrifice was demanded of the British troops in order to feed the Indians, whose allowance of grain was increased while that of the British was decreased. Disease spread among the horses and hundreds were shot and buried. The diminished grain and horse feed supply necessitated the shooting of nearly 2,000 animals. The fattest horses and mules were retained as food for forty days. "Kut-el-Amara was searched as with a fine tooth comb and considerable stores of grain were discovered beneath houses. These were commandeered, the inhabitants previously self-supporting receiving the same ration as the soldiers and Sepoys. It was difficult to use the grain because of inability to grind it into flour, but millstones were finally dropped into the camp by aeroplanes. "In the first week in February scurvy appeared, and aeroplanes dropped seeds, which General Townshend ordered planted on all the available ground, and the gardens bore sufficient fruit to supply a few patients in the hospital. [Illustration: Kut-el-Amara.] "Mule and horse meat and sometimes a variety of donkey meat were boiled in the muddy Tigris water without salt or seasoning. The majority became used to horseflesh and their main complaint was that the horse gravy was like clear oil. "Stray cats furnished many a delicate 'wild rabbit' supper. A species of grass was cooked as a vegetable and it gave a relish to the horseflesh. Tea being exhausted, the soldiers boiled bits of ginger root in water. Latterly aeroplanes dropped some supplies. These consisted chiefly of corn, flour, cocoa, sugar, tea, and cigarettes. "During the last week of the siege many Arabs made attempts to escape by swimming the river and going to the British lines, twenty miles below. Of nearly 100, only three or four succeeded in getting away. One penetrated the Turkish lines by floating in an inflated mule skin." Another intimate description was furnished by the official British press representative with the Tigris Corps and is based on the personal narratives of some of the British officers who, after having been in the Kut hospital for varying periods of the siege on account of sickness or wounds, were exchanged for wounded Turkish officers taken by the relief force. According to this the real privations of the garrison began in the middle of February and were especially felt in the hospital.