hallow bed of the Tigris woefully insufficient for its needs. The
entire lack of jetties and artificial embankments results in the
submersion of vast stretches of land adjacent to the river. Military
operations along its banks then become quite impossible, although in
many places this impossibility exists throughout the entire year,
because the land on both sides of the river for miles and miles has
been permitted to deteriorate into bottomless swamps, through which
even the ingenuity of highly trained engineering troops finds it
impossible to construct a roadway within the available space of time.

These natural difficulties were still more increased by the fact that
the equipment of the relief force was not all that might have been
expected. This is well illustrated by the following letter from a
South African officer, published in the "Cape Times:"

"The river Tigris plays the deuce with the surrounding country when it
gets above itself, from melting snows coming down from the Caucasus,
when it frequently tires of its own course and tries another. The
river is the only drinking water, and you can imagine the state of it
when Orientals have anything to do with it. A sign of its fruity state
is the fact that sharks abound right up to Kurna.

"We have all kinds of craft up here, improvised for use higher up. His
Majesty's ship _Clio_, a sloop, was marked down in 1914 to be
destroyed as obsolete, but she, with her sister ships, _Odin_ and
_Espiegle_, have done great work in the battles to date. Now that we
have got as far as Amara and Nassariyeh, the vessels that give the
greatest assistance are steam launches with guns on them,
flat-bottomed Irrawaddy paddle steamers. For troops we have 'nakelas'
a local sailing vessel, and have 'bellums,' a long, narrow, small
cone-shaped thing, holding from fifteen to twenty men; barges for
animals, etc. Rafts have been used higher up to mount guns on. Here we
have also motor boats.

"The difficulties as we advance are increased to a certain extent,
though country and climate are improving. Our lines of communication
will lengthen out, and we shall have to look out for Arab tribes
raiding. Our aerial service is increasing; we have now a Royal Navy
flight section, which has hydroplanes as well."

In spite of these handicaps, however, General Lake, in command of the
English relief force, reported on April 5, 1916, that a successful
advance was in progress and that the Tigris Corps