The September sun smote us mercilessly as we straggled along the miserable native trail, full of gullies and loose stones.

It would not have been so bad if we had been adequately shod or clothed; but soon we found ourselves envying the ragged Arabs as they trudged along barefoot, paying no heed to the jagged flints.

(Shoes, to the Arab, are articles for ceremonious indoor use; when any serious walking is to be done, he takes them off, slings them over his shoulder, and trusts to the horny soles of his feet.) To add to our troubles, the Turkish officers, with characteristic fatalism, had made no commissary provision for us whatever.

Any food we ate had to be purchased by the roadside from our own funds, which were scant enough to start with.

The Arabs were in a terrible plight.