dying men in tens and twenties, lay in any scrap of shade 

 or mud-hovel that might be allowed them and waited their 

 end. Some had to wait long. Many weeks later, at a 

 desert village about three days' journey from Aleppo, there 

 was found a group of six British soldiers and about a dozen 

 Indians, who for three months had lain on the bare ground 

 of a mud- walled enclosure, subsisting solely on a few 

 scraps thrown to them by Arabs or passing caravans. 

 The Englishmen had been fourteen ; eight had died ; and 

 of the survivors only one was still able to crawl two or 

 three hundred yards to a place where there was water. It 

 begins to be evident how it came about that of the men 

 who surrendered at Kut more than three thousand, British 

 and Indian, have never been heard of at all. 



' The last part of the march over the mountain ranges 

 of the Amanus had been the worst of all, and here, too, 

 the same terrible vestiges had been left in many places. 

 In the future it will be possible to throw further' light on 

 the whole of this crime of two years ago, even though 

 much of it will remain beyond the reach of any investiga- 

 tion. For the present a brief and imperfect summary has 

 to suffice. It is at least enough to ensure that the march 

 of the Kut prisoners will never be forgotten in this country. 

 Their own silent and stoical endurance of the worst made 

 a deep impression, we are told, on those who saw them 

 emerge from this experience." 



A SCENE FROM THE INFERNO. 



When the thinned ranks of these prisoners arrived on 

 July 1 6 within sight of the Mediterranean on the western 

 side of the Amanus mountains their journey was over for 

 the time, but it was only a new stage of suffering that 

 began for them. The Bagdad railway, which was to lead 

 to the final destruction of the English in Mesopotamia, 

 only wanted the piercing of a few tunnels to be complete 

 from Constantinople to the Syrian desert, and the prisoners 

 were to be employed in finishing the work. They were 

 handed over to the German company engaged in the con- 

 struction, and were in effect slaves. They were incapable 

 of work at all, but it was not till September that the Ger- 



58 



