CHAPTER XIV 



AMATEUR SURGEONS 



For three days I marched to the west and camped 

 slightly north-west of an old Belgian station, presumably 

 that marked on the maps as Drani or Alenzoi. There 

 are a few things worth recording that happened during 

 the three days as we gradually pushed on and gained 

 higher country, and left the hordes of mosquitoes behind 

 us. In places the country was beautifully wooded, and 

 not unlike slices cut out of an English park, but with 

 longer grass. Nature had strewn great boulders here 

 and there ; every now and again a great ant-heap of a 

 dark-red colour stood up several feet. At the foot of 

 these, after a rain, countless thousands of ants would 

 swarm and drone in a state of ferment. 



One day I came upon a wide and fast flowing river, 

 that in the dry season of the year would be nothing more 

 than a babbling stream ; but the rains were now coming 

 down from the Divide, and what had in the summer 

 been but a stony gully with a skeleton dry sandy and 

 rock-strewn floor was now a raging torrent, whose swirling 

 and eddying waters we had heard for fully a couple of 

 miles before we gained the slight rise, and saw a hundred 

 yards ahead between deep-cut banks a swollen river. On 

 testing the depth in various places with long poles, it 

 was evident that we could not ford it. A large tree 

 overhung the river further up stream, and I set the boys 

 to work with the axes, and shortly had the satisfaction 

 of seeing the great mass totter and fall across the stream ; 



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