Fit as Fiddles and as Hard as Nails

dered through the town of Basra. It reminded me [of] Portsaid, Aden or any other Arab sea-port. The motley collection of Arabs, Armenians, Jews, Negroes, amongst whom were mingled groups of British and Indian soldiers, formed a strange and ever-changing picture. First impressions were of a dirty, squalid city with its dark, narrow streets and dingy bazaars crowded with lazy ease-loving followers of Islam, all happy and contented drinking tea and coffee, or sitting in their open cafés gazing at the throngs of soldiers and the morning drama that the great war has brought into their streets. To them war is a windfall; their various trades thrive amidst the continual flow and ebb of strangers; and what means victory or defeat to them;