entire Army and all its ancestors; but he did not get through. Another party, bearing on high two stark and shrouded forms, were more successful; the troops were halted; way was made for the dead.
There seemed no end to the khaki-clad host as it swept along, bronzed, dusty, sweating, — the sun was high now, — most of the men with the fixed, intent, rather vacant look straight ahead, that tells of long marching. And all the time the dust arose, and eyes and nostrils and throat grew gritty with particles. I clambered on a high bank to look for the tail of the column. The troops were marching by the stagnant waters of the canal. As far as the eye could reach, the ranks stretched out until they were lost to view in the dust-clouds. The Welsh Regiment approached, then a ponderous thirty-pounder battery lumbered along, then the 1st South Wales Borderers from Peshawar, then field hospital sections, then more native infantry. The end came at last. We hastily started along the canal bank to get ahead of the traffic that had been so long held up. We did three hundred yards in a canter, and then — right before us came another column, a medley of vehicles of all kinds, of camels and mules and horses, of mounted officers and men on foot, and a whole rabble of camp followers. It was the transport, and an officer at its head volunteered the information that it might be two miles long, but was probably nearer three. I had had enough of
