ank guards were sent out. They passed among the Arab tents without
a shot being fired. Soon the growing light disclosed our formidable
numbers. Ahead of us there was a camp in the nullah itself. An old man
just in the act of gathering fuel walked straight into us. He threw
himself on his knees at my feet and lifted his hands with a biblical
gesture of supplication crying out, 'Ar-rab, Ar-rab,' an effective,
though probably unmerited, shibboleth. As he knelt his women at the
other end of the camp were driving off the village flock. Here I
remembered that I was alone with the guide of a column in an event
which ought to have been as historic as the relief of Khartum."

After this unsuccessful attempt at relief comparative quiet reigned
for about a week, interrupted only by occasional encounters between
small detachments. On March 11, 1916, English outposts had advanced
again about seven miles toward Kut-el-Amara to the neighborhood of Abn
Roman, among the sand hills on the right bank of the Tigris. There
they surprised at dawn a small Turkish force and made some fifty
prisoners, including two officers. Throughout the next two or three
days intermittent gunfire and sniping were the only signs of the
continuation of the struggle. On March 15, 1916, two Turkish guns were
put out of action and during that night the Turks evacuated the sand
hills on the right bank of the river, which were promptly occupied by
English troops in the early morning hours of March 16, 1916.

During the balance of March, 1916, conditions remained practically
unchanged. The siege of General Townshend's force was continued by the
Turks along the same lines to which they had adhered from its
beginning--a process of starving their opponents gradually into
surrender. No attempt was made by them to force the issue, except that
on March 23, 1916, the English general reported that his camp at
Kut-el-Amara had been subjected to intermittent bombardment by Turkish
airships and guns during March 21, 22, and 23, 1916. No serious
damage, however, was inflicted.

As spring advanced the difficulties of the English forces attempting
the relief of General Townshend increased, for with the coming of
spring, there also came about the middle of March--the season of
floods. Up in the Armenian highlands, whence the Tigris springs, vast
quantities of snow then begin to melt. Throughout March, April, and
May, 1916, a greatly increased volume of water finds the regular
s