10 
LAINU & WATER 
August 31, 1916 
shining black arms, the same gesture and cry that one 
has often seen and heard KngHsh fami girls use. It \s'as 
the same picture in black and brown and dull reds and 
yellows that one sees in Cornwall in greens and pinks 
and whites and pearly greys. 
The other day I saw some new soldiers from England, 
I believe. Their arms and faces and knees were really 
astonishingly white. I can hardly beheve that everyone 
at home would be like that ; it made one realise that one 
really is very burnt, though it is a yellowish, more sickly 
colour than English seaside sunburn. 
Out last night on column. Got back all right, had a 
bath at the well, four buckets poured over oneself ; it 
was line. A good sleep— nearly full moon rising up as 
1 went to sleep, very large and bright. 
I have just been to the bath houses. There is only 
one lot ; they are used by natives and Indian soldiers 
as well as by us. Somali negroes, Arabs, Asiatic Jew§, 
and mixtures all flock there. The water is drawn up 
out of a dei-p well by camels, a special steep-down path 
is cut for them. They go up to the top one at a time, 
then turn round ; the Arab hooks the rope on to their 
liarncss and they walk to the bottom of the path, thus 
pulling up a huge black dripping leather skin, full of 
water. This is emptied into a tank, and one has one's 
batli in a little cubicle place, under a large tap, so at least 
each customer has fresh water. I rather liked it. The 
|)eople who wait are very interesting. It costs a half- 
penny ! 
The streets are straight and wade. Square, flat-roofed 
houses with every window iron-barred, no glass, but 
strong wooden shutters inside the bars. The roofs have 
wooden water spouts which jut out, to take the water 
away when it does rain, which they say is once in every 
seven or eight years, but we had a fearful rainstorm two 
days ago. 
This is what you see as you walk along the street — 
in front of a white house with blue and yellow streaks 
(if paint round door and windows, sit three camels. 
Their heads inside the open door, where sits an old 
man on a stool. He twists camel grass into bundles 
about a foot long, very neatly, and pushes them into 
the camel's mouths, one by one, time after time till they 
ha\e had enough. This is the method of camel feeding ! 
Through the door, behind the old man, is a mysterious 
dusky interior, with a back door opening into an inner 
courtyard, a peep of blue sky above, and an earthenware 
pitcher with a group of flies, light against the shadow, 
lazily weaving a dance in the still air. Next door an old 
Arab woman in a long red garment, like a nightdress, 
one line from arms to feet (usual dress, in various colours) 
washes a camel with' yellow liquid, smearing it methodi- 
( all\' with her hands, dipping it up from a bowl on the 
,!,'round ; the camel is dyed a deep orange (perhaps it 
kills the ticks on them). Camel carts stand round, of 
old silver-grey unpainted wood ; tiny fowls, bantams, 
scratch in the dust, and run in and out of the houses, 
roosting where they- like. Ftocks of pretty brown and 
dappled goats and kids swarm in the street, and fawn- 
coloured, fat-tailed sheep with hair instead of wool ; 
their horns have grown long and up-curled through lack 
of exercise ; they are periodically taken to the shoe 
maker who cuts the long toes with a chisel (not painful 
for them). A little black girl, just a pretty little, fat, 
black animal, smooth and shiny, with hair in tiny parallel 
braidsabout two feet lon^, with large amber beads round 
her arms, sits and sings a plaintive little song on a door- 
step ; her red and purple dress glows very brightly. 
'fhen there is a sick man, fat and light skinned ; he 
lies all day in the shade of his house, his bed is close to 
the wall at the side of the road. There he lies, propped 
up with piles of bright cushions, an enormous silver and 
brass hookah standing beside hifn. A group of friends 
sit round him (->n stools. They "have coffee brought out 
on a little three-legged tabic It is in a Ibng-necked 
jug with no handle, llie friends are desert people, 
wearing little white cotton jackets, small black turbans, 
and bright loin cloths reaching to the knees. They 
have very thick waistbands with two or three silver- 
handled hooked daggers stuck in them ; they have no 
horses, camels always. 
Close to us is a place where a group of negresses, two 
old, four yoting, fat and shiny, with snow-white teeth, 
sit on the ground and ^ort tobacco leaves. They usually 
have white gowns on with black and purplish pink 
patterns, big yellow beads on their arms, and bare feet. 
I pass them always on the way to the bath-house. They 
j)re always cheerful and smiUng, sitting in the dust, 
their dark little grass hut behind them, and their little 
goats frisking round them, trying to steal tobacco leaves 
to eat ! Fat little nude babies of all shades of brown and 
black toddle round, and suck their lingers at one, salute 
(like soldiers), and often fall down in the effort ! 
When that downpour of rain came we were drenched. 
Our huts don't keep a drop out. There wag- 3 feet of 
water on the floor ; my boots floated away 1 It came 
at 2 a.m. I had lent my overcoat, and was soaked and 
cold, but am none the worse for it. There, I have 
described the place as well as I can, but it is so hot, and 
the flies are so bad that I can't write with any ease or 
comfort. I have fotmd the top of a shell fuse and an 
empty cartridge case that the Turks fired in the last 
scrap ; star and crescent on them, quite good little 
relics. I hope to bring them home. 
Si^a Soulin^ and Seamanship for Boys. By W. Baden- 
Powell, K.C., (Sinipkin, Marshall and Co., is." 6d. net), is 
not only the otticial manual of the Boy Scouts Association 
for sea scouts, but is also a iiiglily interesting work, apart 
from th? great amount of technical instruction that it conveys. 
Such items of the sea as pirates, slavers, and their kind exer- 
cise a permanent fascination on the mind of a boy — and they 
are all here, in their true colours, while there is enough of 
sea history to make even an adult read and enjoy the book. 
There iis, also, a great deal of practical information on the way 
to handle a boat, both with oar., and sail ; how to send and 
read sea signals ; how to use the rocket apparatus— and, on 
the whole, how to become efficient in the cratt of the sea. 
Well arranged, and written in non-technical form, the manual 
is to be unreservedly commended both for use and interest. 
The many readers of L.\nd & W.\ter who remember with 
pleasure Mr. H. de ,Vere Stacpoole's serial story, Chaya, will 
welcome the publication of that story in volume form under 
the title The Reef of Stars, (Hutchinson and Co., 6s.). Mr. 
Stacpoole got together a notable company of adventurers 
for this story, and t e recital of their doings gains by presenta- 
tion in volume form, for the story is one which, having once 
begun, the reader is reluctant to put it down before the last 
page is turned. Here is an opportunity, of which many will 
avail themselves, to read the whole at one sitting. ILspecially 
in his presentment of Soutli Pacific life, Mr. Stacpoole is a 
master of the art of \ivid presentation of both character and 
incident, and in this book he has carried that art to a ])oint 
truly Stevensonian. As a serial, the story brought him many 
new readers, and in volume form it will bring him many more. 
A little volume that l\Ir. Erskine MacDonald has in 
active preparation should be of unusual interest and im- 
portance. This book is a collection under one cover of the 
work, hitherto unpublished in volume form, of a dozen or 
more soldier poets — including Capt. JuUan Grenfell, D.S.O., 
Major Sydney Oswald, Lt. Dyneley Hussey, Capt. Sorley, 
Lt. Geoffrey Howard, Corp. Streets, Pte. Smallcy-Sarson of 
the Canadians, and others who represent most vividly the 
feeUngs and outlook of our fighting men, as well as de])icting 
battle scenes. 
Gilded Vanity (Heinemann, 5s. net) was, as is stated in a 
note opposite the title page, first pubUshed in volume form 
some twenty years ago, before tiie " Dop Doctor " had 
come to render such a step with regard to any work of this 
author unnecessary. It forms a distinctly different type of 
novel from that which one is inclined to expect from this 
author's pen ; the style and the plot are so simple that the 
interest depends mainly on the manner in which the plot 
is handled, and it may be said that this is so witty and en- 
gaging that theirepmblication is fuUv justified. There are 
misunderstandings and iieartbreaks in tlie plot, but these 
are treated at times with a note of almost Shavian mockery, 
yet not in such a way as to destroy the reader's sympathy- 
there is depth in the work in spite of the light touch. Hilarv 
Warr, " petrified bachelor," finds that his lady-love Klizabeth 
Colquhoun, a girl of good family, is not inclined to love him 
unless he can assure her of a good income — or rather, is not 
inclined fo yield to her love for him— she explains frankly 
tliat she means to marr\^ for money. So she chose " gilded 
vanity " with another man, and, of" course. Warr attained to 
such a position as would have satisfied all her wishes. The 
author's skill is shown in the wav in which the reader's svm- 
pathy with such a girl as Elizabeth is maintained, as well as 
in a delightful irony not unlike Hichens' in " The Londoners." 
