_July 23, 1916._--“All is really well, all of us and the horses very fit and flourishing. I am so pleased, and hoping with luck to get all safely ashore.... It was a wickedly hot night the one I wrote to you in the docks. I got to bed about 12.45, but could not sleep a wink, with the heat and the noise and thinking about next day. I got up again about 4.45 and was down before 6, and we worked like anything; the men were first-class, and we had no trouble with horses or mules, and were all aboard by 11 A.M. It was extraordinarily lucky I went round myself the evening before, for I found both the ramps leading below for the horses from the upper deck were made too low to let anything but a pony in. Of course I made trouble and had to have both altered.... Things worked beautifully.... 25 chargers and 235 horses and 84 mules.... The mules we put on board first, a very mixed lot, mostly in poor condition, some very big, some small, but I think they will be all right. The horses we simply took straight from the train on board.... They seem to be all walers,[16] and a small lot on the whole--some very weedy and light of bone, not many common ones, and a few showing a lot of quality; very few though showing much scope or size, and the majority of them in distinctly poor light condition. They look very healthy, and well in their coats.... “We could hardly be more comfortable than we are on this ship. She is the best for horses I have ever seen--the men are very comfortable, and so are we.... There is a lovely head breeze and it is blowing right through the ship, and it isn’t at all bad below, and all is as well as possible, and if only it goes on like this we shall, I hope, bring all in safe and well. Every one said it would be terrible.... “To-day we might get wireless news from Aden or from B.[17] How I do hope we may. You can’t tell how we want news.... This evening we are going to have a men’s concert on the boat deck, 8 to 9.30.... “We are as fit as fleas, sweating like anything of course, but I don’t seem to feel it and am ever so fit, and never been so comfortable and content on a voyage.... Every one wears shorts, and they are a great comfort....” [Illustration: BASRA FORT] [Illustration: A CREEK] [Illustration: H. ROBINSON BRIDGE] [Illustration: SINDBAD’S TOWER] BASRA _July 25._--“Everything has worked most awfully well, and we are now, 7.45 A.M., well on our way up the river.... Last night was terribly hot. I went below myself about 1 o’clock, and a lot of horses were blowing badly and we had them out in the hatchways. But they got through the night well.... There is a most lovely fresh head breeze, and it is as cool as anything. The river here is wide, and we are able to full-speed ahead, but so far it is the most terrible unhealthy-looking place--palm groves very low lying, mud, and sand. Of course this is only the delta. It ought to be much more interesting farther up....