y, dangerous gap between the Usambara and Pare
Mountains, and another gap of about four or five miles between the Pare
Mountains and Kilimanjaro. It was impossible to move an army through the
first gap; the second gap at the foot of Kilimanjaro was the place where
the enemy had located himself early in the war on British territory, and
with patience and skill had dug himself in, with very extensive
fortifications, surrounded by dense forests and impassable swamps. Here
he lay waiting for eighteen months, threatening British East Africa.
From here he was driven in March, 1916, and by the end of that month our
forces had conquered the whole Kilimanjaro-Meru areas. It was at this
stage, and after our initial success, that the rainy season set in; and
that is another great feature of German East Africa. I had read much
about it, and I had heard more; but the reality far surpassed the worst
I had read or heard. For weeks the rain came down ceaselessly,
pitilessly, sometimes three inches in twenty-four hours, until all the
hollows became rivers, all the low-lying valleys became lakes, the
bridges disappeared, and all roads dissolved in mud. All communications
came to an end, and even Moses himself in the desert had not such a
commissariat situation as faced me.

[Sidenote: The enemy's line of retreat.]

When in the latter part of May the rains subsided, the advance against
the enemy was once more resumed. In order to create the maximum
difficulties for our advance, the enemy chose as his line of retreat the
great block of mountains which I have referred to as forming the eastern
buttress of the great central plateau. For the next three and a half
months our forward movement continued with only one short pause until
by the middle of September we had reached the great valleys of the
Rufiji and the Great Rwaha in the far south, and across the Rwaha we
could link up with General Northey at Iringa in the southwest.

[Sidenote: Difficulties of transport and supply in advance.]

[Sidenote: Poisonous insects and tropical diseases.]

[Sidenote: The campaign a story of human endurance.]

It is impossible for those unacquainted with German East Africa to
realize the physical, transport, and supply difficulties of an advance
over this magnificent, but mountainous, country, with a great rainfall
and wide, unbridged rivers in the regions of the mountains, and
insufficient surface water on the plains for the needs of an army; with
mag