The line of advance lay
along the river; but no road relieved the labour of the march. Sometimes
trailing across a broad stretch of white sand, in which the soldiers sank
to their ankles, and which filled their boots with a rasping grit;
sometimes winding over a pass or through a gorge of sharp-cut rocks, which,
even in the moonlight, felt hot with the heat of the previous day--always
in a long, jerky, and interrupted procession of men and camels, often in
single file--the column toiled painfully like the serpent to whom it
was said, 'On thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat.'
The column started at 5.30 in the evening, and by a march of sixteen and
a half miles reached Mushra-el-Obiad at about midnight. Here a convenient
watering-place, not commanded by the opposite bank, and the shade of eight
or ten thorny bushes afforded the first suitable bivouac. At 3.30 P.M. on
the 30th the march was continued eight and a half miles to a spot some
little distance beyond Shebabit. The pace was slow, and the route stony
and difficult. It was after dark when the halting-place was reached.
Several of the men strayed from the column, wandered in the gloom, and
reached the bivouac exhausted. General Hunter had proposed to push on the
next day to Hosh-el-Geref, but the fatigues of his troops in the two night
marches had already been severe, and as, after Abu Haraz, the track twisted
away from the river so that there was no water for five miles, he resolved
to halt for the day and rest.
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