wind stops the flies pester one. They all say that this place is
flyless compared to Nasiriyah, where they used to kill a pint and a
half a day by putting saucers of formalin and milk on the mess table
and still have to use one hand with a fan all the time while eating
with the other, to prevent getting them into their mouths. Here it is
only a matter of half a dozen round one's plate--we feed on the first
floor, which is a gain. In the men's bungalows I try to keep them down
by insisting on every scrap of food being either swept away or covered
up: and the presence or absence of flies is incidentally a good test
as to whether the tables and mugs, etc., have been properly cleaned.
They are worse in the early morning. When I ride through the town
before breakfast they settle all up the sunny side of me from boot to
topi, about two to the square inch, and nothing but hitting them will
make them budge. They are disgusting creatures. Of course the filthy
habits of the natives encourage them. The streets are littered with
every kind of food-scraps and dirt: and the Arab has only two
W.C.'s--the street and the river. Our chief tyranny in his eyes is
that we have posted sanitary police about who fine him 2_s_. if he
uses either: but like all reforms it is evaded on a large scale. The
theory that the sun sweetens everything is not quite true. Even after
several days' sun manure is very offensive and prolific: and many
parts of the streets are not reached by the sun at all: and in any
case the flies get to work much sooner than the sun.

We have just had news from the front that a successful action has been
fought, the enemy's left flank turned and several hundred prisoners
taken--our own casualties under 500. So the show seems to have come off
up to time. We were afraid it might have to be postponed, as a raiding
party got round and cut our L. of C., but this does not appear to have
worried them. I hope they will be able to follow this success up and