The Turkish officers at Port Sulieman were very courteous, especially Nouri Pasha, who is a brother of Enver Pasha, but palpably perturbed at the prospect of caring for us. They were short of food themselves apparently, and that region, like all the rest of Eastern Tripolitana, is an almost absolute desert. Since their German masters had decreed the thing, however, there was nothing more to be said, and so, in the true Oriental fashion of following the line of least resistance, they passed us on to the Senussi. Since the Senussi had no one else to pass us along to, they had to shoulder the burden themselves and trudge on with it as best they might. The ship's cook, who had died from his wounds in one of the boats, we buried soon after landing, breaking an oar to form a rude cross above his grave. That night, still in our wet garments, we spent huddled together upon some rocks by the shore. The next morning we were given a small quantity of rice, which we had to cook as best we could in some beef tins and eat with our fingers. There was less than a handful of the tasteless, unsalted mixture to each man. We were terribly cold, hungry, and thirsty; indeed, for the next four months and a half, there was hardly an hour in which we were not suffering a good deal from one, and usually all three, of these causes. After a couple of days we were moved back from the coast to a primitive village where the people and animals alike lived in dug-outs in the rocks. A "stable" which had been occupied by goats, donkeys, and pigs was cleared for us, and there, living in indescribable filth, we were kept for four days. We had been forced to carry with us on a stretcher, a quartermaster of the _Tara_ who had sustained a double fracture of one of his legs. At this juncture, between filth and vermin, infection set in, and the only chance of saving his life appeared to be amputation. This--I will spare you the harrowing details--was finally accomplished with no other instruments than a pair of old scissors and a drop of whisky--our last--to steady the poor fellow's nerves. Of course, he died. The Arabs now told us that they were going to take us to a beautiful oasis, where there were water and dates in plenty, and flocks of sheep and goats, and warm houses to shelter us in. Why they told us this I have never been able to make out. Possibly to make us forget our ever-empty stomachs; more likely because Arabs are incapable of telling the truth even when they want to. At any rate, we never reached the paradise that our captors persistently dangled before us like the carrot on a donkey's nose.