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