forward to meet us with lowered bayonet, remarking in a businesslike
manner: "There isn't any countersign."

Except for the gunboats and monitors, all river traffic is controlled by
the Inland Water Transport Service. The officers are recruited from all
the world over. I firmly believe that no river of any importance could be
mentioned but what an officer of the I.W.T. could be found who had
navigated it. The great requisite for transports on the Tigris was a very
light draft, and to fill the requirements boats were requisitioned ranging
from penny steamers of the Thames to river-craft of the Irrawaddy. Now in
bringing a penny steamer from London to Busra the submarine is one of the
lesser perils, and in supplying the wants of the Expeditionary Force more
than eighty vessels were lost at sea, frequently with all aboard.

As was the custom, we had a barge lashed to either side. These barges are
laden with troops, or horses, or supplies. In our case we had the first
Bengal regiment--a new experiment, undertaken for political reasons. The
Bengali is the Indian who most readily takes to European learning.
Rabindranath Tagore is probably the most widely known member of the race.
They go to Calcutta University and learn a smattering of English and
absorb a certain amount of undigested general knowledge and theory. These
partially educated Bengalis form the Babu class, and many are employed in
the railways. They delight in complicated phraseology, and this coupled
with their accent and seesaw manner of speaking supply the English a
constant source of caricature. As a race they are inclined to be vain and
boastful, and are ever ready to nurse a grievance against the British
Government, feeling that they have been provided with an education but no
means of support. The government felt that it might help to calm them if a
regiment were recruited and sent to Mesopotamia. How they would do in
actual fighting had never been demonstrated up to the time I left the