PI 
August 31, 1916 
LAND & WATER 
the vital artery connecting Turkey — that is the Darda- 
nelles — with her necessary munitionment and supply from 
the Austro-Gernian factories. It is a neck only waiting 
to be cut. ' 
It may be that political elements give a different value 
to the whole affair. It may be that Bulgaria, finding her 
position hopeless, is ready to accept the consequences of 
defeat — I know nothing of that. But as a merely military 
problem the thing is quite clear. With the great forces 
acting from Salonika to the south, the north is open. 
This creation of and attack on a new Bulgarian front 
in the first place extends the total eneniy line by yet 
another 200 miles from the Iron Gates to Silistra and from 
Silistra by the new frontier acquired in 1913 to the sea*: 
the southern edge of the Dobrudja (Dobrogea). 
The Danube is indeed a formidable obstacle. It is 
unbridged during all these 200 miles. It is, even at low 
water, half a mile broad upon an average (though fre- 
quently interspersed with and made broader by islands). 
It is flanked upon nearly the whole of its course with 
marshy land. But there are no effectives for holding 
that obstacle, and even if there were, it is turned in a 
fashion with a description of which I will conclude this 
study. 
The Gerna-Voda Bridge 
The Port of Constanza upon the Black Sea, has lately 
risen again to great commercial importance. The inter- 
national line uniting it with the centre of Europe was, 
with that leading to Salonika, one of the great objects of 
the. " middle Europe'an " aggression. Roumania a3 a 
vassal state of Middle Europe — i situation taken for 
granted a year ago in the German scheme and now im- 
possible of attainment — would have provided the second 
of the great avenues to eastern seas ; the first to the 
^gean by Salonika ; the second to the Black Sea by 
Constanza. For Odessa was beyond hoping for. 
Now cutting the trajectory of this great international 
line and some 40 miles from Constanza came the Danube 
with its broad belt of marshy land, 5 or 6 miles across. 
Elsewhere as I have said, there was no bridge across it. 
The six Bulgarian railway lines which come down to the 
neighbourhood of the stream or to its banks cease there, 
and even when there is a corresponding terminus 
upon the further shore, communication between the two 
is only by ferry boats, which cannot transport a railway 
carriage. But at Cerna-Voda the feat of bridging the 
stream and its marshy surroundings was accomplished. 
A series of viaducts between them more than two miles 
long bridged the worst gaps in the marshes and a great 
bridge more than half a mile in length crossed the stream 
itself 100 feet above the water. This is the bridge of 
Cerna-Voda, and by it troops can always turn the obstacle 
of the Danube to-day, so long as they are Roumanian or 
in alliance with Roumania, and so long as the Dobrudja 
is safely held. Indeed, it was with the object of safe- 
guarding the Dobrudja that the new frontier was insisted 
upon in 1913 and obtained. H. Belloc 
[Certain omissions have had to he made from Mr. 
Belloc's article at the request of the Press Bureau, 
fust as we are going to press. There is therefore a 
break in. the latter part of Mr. Belloc's argument.] 
Campaigning in Arabia 
Bv Gerard Shavv^ 
THE other day we had a dreadful dust storm ; 
for a long time it was \'ery hot and stuffy, not 
a breath of air Sweat trickled down one in 
streams even while one lay still, then the sun 
was clouded over, and a faint breeze rustled the palm 
leaves, and a brown cloud came up ov'er the horizon, 
slowly growing and rising up, up, till it reached right 
overhead, threatening, with whirlings and eddies of 
yellow-brown in the centre, long trailing curtains of a 
livid brown colour and ragged wisps reaching out across 
the clear part of the sky. 
Suddenly it broke. A shrieking wind, a dull red 
twilight (just the colour of light red paint), almost dark, 
rivers of dust and gravel rushing in straight lines along 
the ground, so fast that it made one giddy to watch them. 
One' couldn't see two yards ; inside the hut was a dense 
suffocating fog, everything was thickly powdered. The 
Arabs looked very weird with their hair and eyebrows 
pale dust-coloured ! 
We had to go out on column in the middle of it, the 
gravel and sand stung one like whips. I tied a hand- 
kerchief over my nose and. mouth. After an hour or 
more it got brown, then yellow, finally whitish, and then 
clear, and the moon came out shining quietly through 
white c'ouds floating on a cool strong breeze and no 
dust anywhere, a great relief. 
The next day I saw a real sacred scarabteus' beetle — 
large, black, something like a dor beetle, but not so 
stout. It walked backwards with its front legs, holding 
in its hind legs a ball of dry mud, or hardened sand, as 
big as a \-ery large marble ; he simply rushed backwards 
with it. When I very gently took it away from him and 
let it roll down the hill, he wasted no time looking for it 
up the slope, but hurried to the bottom, almost, at once, 
and picked it up again ! Then he buried it and himself 
in a bit of soft sand. 
I saw a nice little picture the other day, an Abyssinian 
girl, or young woman. She had a tiny black baby 
astride her hip ; , she was in front of her house, a little 
stick and mat hut. Soon she sat down and began shelling 
some little things like dried peas. All her hens and goats 
came round her, piebald and mottled goats and kids ; 
some reddish brown, some black and white, or grey, 
and very playful, to try and steal the peas. A young 
camel tied up near by craned his long neck yearningly, 
and then began to console himself with an old basket 
which he contentedly chewed up and swallowed 1 
The young woman was quite nice and pretty. That 
race of people are the ancient Ethiopians, whom the 
Egyptians drove south from Egypt. Their features are 
not negroid at all, though they are as black and smooth 
as coal itself. The women havp their hair in a big bun 
on their necks, held in a coarse net, tight and hard. 
This one was very fat, but clean and quite pleasant ; her 
arms and shoulders were bare, and she had great amber 
beads round each arm above the elbow ; her robe was 
white, covered with little purple and red and black 
patterns. She sat and smiled, showing snow-white teeth. 
Some of the little hens made a rush at her peas ; she 
drove them off with a cry, and a sweeping gesture oi 
