six mules were left alive to
feed a garrison and civilian population of nearly 20,000 persons.

"In the early stages of the siege, the Arab traders sold stocks of
jam, biscuits, and canned fish at exorbitant prices. The stores were
soon exhausted and all were forced to depend upon the army
commissariat. Later a dead officer's kit was sold at auction. Eighty
dollars was paid for a box of twenty-five cigars and twenty dollars
for fifty American cigarettes.

"In February the ration was a pound of barley-meal bread and a pound
and a quarter of mule or horse flesh. In March the ration was reduced
to half a pound of bread and a pound of flesh. In April it was four
ounces of bread and twelve ounces of flesh, which was the allowance
operative at the time of the surrender. The food problem was made more
difficult by the Indian troops, who because of their religion refused
to eat flesh, fearing they would break the rules of their caste by
doing so.

"When ordinary supplies were diminished a sacrifice was demanded of
the British troops in order to feed the Indians, whose allowance of
grain was increased while that of the British was decreased. Disease
spread among the horses and hundreds were shot and buried. The
diminished grain and horse feed supply necessitated the shooting of
nearly 2,000 animals. The fattest horses and mules were retained as
food for forty days.

"Kut-el-Amara was searched as with a fine tooth comb and considerable
stores of grain were discovered beneath houses. These were
commandeered, the inhabitants previously self-supporting receiving the
same ration as the soldiers and Sepoys. It was difficult to use the
grain because of inability to grind it into flour, but millstones were
finally dropped into the camp by aeroplanes.

"In the first week in February scurvy appeared, and aeroplanes dropped
seeds, which General Townshend ordered planted on all the available
ground, and the gardens bore sufficient fruit to supply a few patients
in the hospital.

[Illustration: Kut-el-Amara.]

"Mule and horse meat and sometimes a variety of donkey meat were
boiled in the muddy Tigris water without salt or seasoning. The
majority became used to horseflesh and their main complaint was that
the horse gravy was like clear oil.

"Stray cats furnished many a delicate 'wild rabbit' supper. A species
of grass was cooked as a vegetable and it gave a relish to the
horseflesh. Tea being exhausted, the soldiers boiled bits o