As we approached the hills they looked less bleak--a soft green clothed the hollows, and the little oasis of Ain Leilah no longer stood out in the same marked contrast as when last I visited it. The roads were in good shape, and we reached camp at four in the afternoon. I took one of the tenders and set off to look up some old friends in the regiments near by. As I passed a group of Arabs that had just finished work on the roads, I noticed that they were playing a game that was new to me. A stake was driven into the ground, with a horsehair rope ten or twelve feet in length attached to it. An old man had hold of the end of the rope. About the stake were piled some clothes, and the Arabs were standing around in a circle just out of reach of the man with the rope. The object was to dart in and snatch up something from the heap without the old man who was on guard catching you. They were enjoying themselves hugely--the oldest graybeards behaving as if they were children--a very pleasant side of the Arab. Our instructions were to be ready to pull out before daybreak. The mission was, as usual, a flanking one. The direct attack was to be delivered on Kara Tepe, and, if that were successful, upon Kifri. We were to intercept the arrival of reinforcements, or cut off the retreat of the garrisons, as the case might be. In the early morning hours the country was lovely--rolling grass land "with a hint of hills behind"--miles of daisies with clusters of blood-red poppies scattered through them--and occasional hollows carpeted with a brilliant blue flower. In the river courses there were numbers of brilliantly hued birds--the gayest colors I saw in Mesopotamia with the exception of the vivid arsenic-green birds around Ana on the Euphrates. In one place I thought that the ground was covered with red flowers, but a close inspection proved it to be myriads of tiny red insects swarming on the grass stems. Column marching is slow and wearisome, and after the sun rose the heat became intense. The dust smothered us; there was not a breath of air to rid us of it for even a moment. The miles seemed interminable. At noon we halted beside a narrow stream known as Oil River--a common name in this part of the country where oil abounds and the water is heavily impregnated with it. For drinking it was abominable--and almost spoiled the tea upon which we relied for a staple. A few miles beyond, the engineers found a suitable location to throw a bridge across the creek. The main body was halted at a place known as Umr Maidan and we were sent over the bridge to form across the main road leading from Kara Tepe back into the Turkish territory.