The march that night was uneventful, and we halted for a few hours before dawn near the river, continuing our way as soon as it got light. We passed a few Arab encampments, formed of dark tents, where the nomads come at certain seasons to cultivate the surrounding land, together with their flocks of sheep and goats. Not a single house, or even mud-hut, was to be seen. Our next halt, which we reached in the middle of the morning, was a serai standing by itself on a low ridge. It was built on the usual square pattern, and contained a well, which however, was not of very much use, as the water was unfit for drinking; drinking water had all to be carried from the river, over a mile away.
Elmey Bey, or "Phil May," as we christened him, had by this time shown how anxious he was to help us, by doing nothing at all to assist us either in buying provisions or keeping prices down. Our escort consisted of a few Arab gendarmes, and, on arrival at any village or encampment, they would make the people put up their prices, and insist on taking the difference as commission themselves; whenever they could manage it they prevented all country people from approaching us until their own demands had been satisfied.
Phil May rode the whole way, and would hurry on and be comfortably asleep in his camp bed by the time we reached the end of the march. If worried sufficiently by the senior officers, he would occasionally go to the extent of abusing one or more of the gendarmes, and administer the usual punishment adopted by all officers in the Turkish army--slapping the face of the culprit. It says a good deal for the discipline of the Turkish soldier that a sergeant will stand up like a lamb and have his face smacked by the veriest nincompoop of an officer.
Leaving the serai again the following morning, we did a short march of some six or seven miles only, down to the river. This was to be a very strenuous day, for that evening we were to start on the long waterless march about which we had heard so much. It was said to be 40 miles, that we should halt during the next day, and not reach water till the morning after, thus doing two all-night marches. Most people had bought goatskins, tied up to hold water, from the local Arabs. Most of them leaked more or less rapidly, the new skins being much the worst, and all gave the water a very strong flavour.