ble to see at night, the "mush-shuf-bi' leil's" ("can't
see-at-nights") we used to call them; and as we had a few blind camels as
well the situation called for some ingenuity. The only way to solve the
problem was to tie the men's wrists to the saddles of the camel immediately
in front of them. They then allowed themselves to be towed along, keeping
the rope just taut enough to act as a guide.

The blind camels were similarly treated, though even then there were
accidents. One came shortly before dawn as we were crossing a viaduct with
neither wall nor protection of any kind against a thirty-foot drop. A blind
camel blundered towards the edge, slipped, and crashed down into the
riverbed, and as he had 200 lbs. of biscuits on his back to speed his fall,
it looked like a certain casualty. With some difficulty we clambered down
to him, and found him not only alive but calmly grazing on the herbage
around! And when the biscuits were removed he got up, grunting and
snarling, but absolutely uninjured and ready to carry his load again.

As we approached Beyrout the signs of distress among the people grew more
and more pronounced. Along the route were several tiny villages whose
inhabitants gathered by the roadside to beg for food, and it was awful to
see the wolfish way they ate the biscuits we gave them. At many places
women stood with jars of water which they offered to the camel-drivers,
not, I am sure, as a _quid pro quo_, but because it was all they had to
offer.

Just at the entrance to the olive-groves, which extend for six miles out of
Beyrout, I saw a dead child lying by the roadside, and from that point the
journey became a succession of heartrending sights. Gaunt, lean-faced men,
women thin to the point of emaciation, and children whose wizened faces
made them look like old men, lined the route weeping for joy at their
deliverance. Every one of our men as he passed handed over his day's
rations of bully-beef and biscuits to the starving people; I saw one woman
hysterically trying to insert a piece of army biscuit into the mouth of the
baby in her arms, and groups of little boys fighting for the food thrown to
them. It was pitiful to see the gratitude of people who succeeded in
catching a biscuit or a tin of bully; and the way they welcomed our
camel-drivers, who, of course, spoke Arabic like themselves, was a
revelation.

A man, haggard with want, came out of his little wine-shop and offered me a
glass of aniseed