nes. That is why I asked you to send me
Swinburne, as I want to get to the bottom of his position. Shelley's I
know, and it is, in my opinion a much more obvious, easier, and more
superficial one than Tennyson's: besides being based on a distorted
view of Christianity. Shelley in fact wanted to abolish Christianity
as the first step towards teaching men to be Christian.

Of all the agnostics, Meredith is the one that appeals to me most: but
I've not read his poetry, which I believe has much more of his
philosophy in it than his novels have.

_P.S._ I have just seen your appeal in the _Hampshire Herald_ for L500
for a motor ambulance boat, in which you say the Red Cross have
already sent us two such boats. All I can say is that nobody in this
regiment has ever seen or heard of these boats: and they certainly
have not been used for transporting sick and wounded either from
Nasiriyah or from Kut. If they were in Mesopotamia at all, it is
incredible that we shouldn't have heard of them.

* * * * *

AMARAH.

_October_ 22, 1915.

TO L.R.

I don't think there is any likelihood of Luly's coming here. For one
thing our battalion 1/6th is too weak to afford another draft at
present; and even if it sent one there are many officers who would be
asked before Luly. As a matter of fact we have just heard we 1/4th are
getting large reinforcements from our proper resources, _viz._ 250
from 2/4th at Quetta and 50 from those invalided in the hot weather.

Your letter of September 5th arrived well after that of September
22nd.

I'm glad the ---- are optimistic: if Belgians can be we should be able
to. But I can't help feeling the Government is lamentably weak and
wanting in leadership: the policy of keeping the nation in the dark
seems to me to be insane.

There is no news to report here. We still do very little work, but the
weather is quite pleasant. I am very well.

There is not much to do. The country is very dull for walking and
riding.

The birds here are very few compared to those in India. On the river
there are pied Kingfishers. On the flooded land and especially on the
mud-flats round it there are large numbers of sandpipers, Kentish and
ringed plovers, stints and stilts, terns and gulls, ducks and teal,
egrets and cranes: but as there is not a blade of vegetation within a
mile of them there are no facilities for observation, still less for
shooting.

There are several buzzards