good enough to make the difference.

The scene at the race-course was a gay one. The color was chiefly
contributed by the Jewesses who wore their hooded silk cloaks of lively
hue--green or pink or yellow. The only crowd that I saw to vie with it was
one which watched the prisoners taken at Ramadie march through the town.
Turkish propaganda, circulated in the bazaars, gave out that instead of
taking the prisoners we claimed, we had in reality suffered a defeat, and
it was decided that the sight of the captive Turks would have a salutary
effect upon the townsmen. Looking down from a housetop the red fezzes and
the gay-colored abas made the crowd look like a vast field of poppies.

When I was at Samarra an amusing incident took place in connection with a
number of officers' wives who were captured at Ramadie. The army commander
didn't wish to ship them off to India and Burma with their husbands, so he
sent them up to Samarra with instructions that they be returned across
the lines to the Turks. After many aeroplane messages were exchanged it
was agreed that we should leave them at a designated hill and that the
Turks would later come for them. Meanwhile we had arranged quarters for
them, trying to do everything in a manner that would be in harmony with
the Turkish convenances. When the wives were escorted forth to be turned
back to their countrymen, they were all weeping bitterly. Whether it was
that the Turk in his casual manner decided that one day was as good as
another, or whether he felt that he had no particular use for these
particular women, we never knew, but at all events twenty-four hours later
one of our patrols came upon the prisoners still forlornly waiting. We
shipped them back to Baghdad.

Occasionally I would go to one of the Arab theatres. The plays were
generally burlesques, for the Arab has a keen sense of humor and greatly