_November 14._--... “We left the dirty camp at Amara at 8.30 yesterday and marched out here, about 6½ miles up-stream, just on the bend of the river. This is a really nice camp. The country is short heathy turf covered with camel thorn, but all very dry and hard now, and on the opposite bank are gardens and palm groves.... The camp is really as in peace-time, and they have trumpet-calls and all that sort of thing. There are no enemy near except Arab rifle thieves.... I suppose we shall start regular work here very soon, but we shan’t be able to do so much with the horses, as they only get 3 lb. of hay, the rest _bhoosa_ (chopped straw), and only 10 or 11 lb. of grain--uncrushed barley and bran.... I am so cosy and comfortable in my 80-lb. tent--the same as we had in India. We have moved the whole of our tents and the mess right up on to the river bank, where all the officers now are, and we have fixed up one mess-tent with the river side of it up horizontally and open to the river, and it is very nice.... We are under orders to hold ourselves in readiness to move from to-morrow, but no orders have come, so I’m afraid we are not off yet. But a big native boat has been secured for the Brigade in which some of the heavy kit is being carried.” [Illustration: THE RIVER FRONT, AMARA] [Illustration: PONTOON BRIDGE, AMARA] _November 15._--“Away to the east you can plainly see the Persian foothills about forty miles off. “We are all right so far for rations ourselves, getting fresh meat quite often, and a full allowance; but our unfortunate horses are now on three-quarter rations of grain only, and that uncrushed barley, and hardly any hay, with a little chopped straw in turn. We hope when the railway is finished this may be put right, but it is bad at present, and means we dare do very little with them. The railway is finished in great parts, and they hoped would be through this month. Let’s only hope so.... “The nights are cold, but the days still hot, much more so than I expected. That’s what makes the climate trying, the tremendous changes during the twenty-four hours. But I think it’s very healthy up here, and we are all very fit and flourishing, and hardly any sickness among the men either. My only anxiety is my poor horses. “They have got canteens going now both here [and] at the Front, so we can replenish always, and are doing ourselves quite well.”