Below us some fishermen were seated in a boat apparently made of basket-work. It looked like a Welsh coracle, but was of much larger dimensions. They were engaged in fishing with a sort of dragnet, one of them was busily employed in mending a smaller one of the same kind.
"Beautiful fish are caught here," said the guide. "Some are 100 okes in weight (about 260 lbs.). The people salt, and eat them in the winter."
We met some sick soldiers lying across the path. They had fallen out of the ranks and were basking themselves in the sun, utterly regardless of the fact that their battalion was, ere this, a two hours' march ahead of them.
"What is the matter with you?" I inquired of one man.
"Footsore," was his reply, at the same time pointing to his frost-bitten feet.
"And with you?" to another.
"I, Effendi, I am weak and hungry."
"What! have you had no breakfast?"
"No."
I then discovered that these soldiers had been twenty-four hours without food! There was no grumbling at this breakdown in the commissariat department. The men were solacing themselves with a cigarette, the property of one of the party, and which he was sharing with his comrades.