the 4th Brigade leading.  It was almost daylight before the rear of the column passed the place at which we were waiting.  The men were all in great spirits, laughing and chaffing and giving the usual “Are we down’earted?”.  I think those men would laugh if they were going to be hanged.  Our bearer divisions, in charge respectively of Captains Welch, Jeffries and Kenny, followed in rear of the Brigade, while the tent divisions came in rear of the whole column.

Major Meikle and I had often, like Moses viewing the Land of Promise, looked at the country over which the fight was now to take place—­a stretch of flats about three miles long, from the beach up to the foot of the hills.  As the day broke, we found a transformation at Nibronesi Point, which is the southernmost part of Suvla Bay.  At nightfall not a ship was there; now there was a perfect forest of masts.  The place looked like Siberia in Newcastle when there was a strike on.  I counted ten transports, seven battle-cruisers, fourteen destroyers, twelve trawlers and a lot of pinnaces.  These had landed the force which was afterwards known as the Suvla Bay Army.  A balloon ship and five hospital ships were also at anchor in the bay.  As we passed what was known as our No. 3 Outpost, we came across evidences of the fight—­dead men, dead mules, equipment, ammunition boxes and rifles lying all over the place.  We noted, too, little hillocks of sand here and there, from behind which the Turks had fired at our column.  It was evident that our men had soon got in touch with the enemy and had driven him back.  The Aghyl Dere proved to be a fairly wide gully with steep hills on either side.  A little distance, about three quarters of a mile up, we came to what had been the Turkish Brigade Headquarters.  Here everything was as they had left it.  The surprise had been complete, and we had given them very short notice to quit.  Clothing, rifles, equipment, copper pans and boilers were in abundance, and it was evident that Abdul makes war with regard to every comfort, for there were visible also sundry articles of wearing apparel only used by the gentler sex.  The men had comfortable bivouacs and plenty of bed-clothing of various patterns.  The camp was situated in a hollow, round in shape and about a hundred yards in diameter, with dug-outs in the surrounding hillsides; all was very clean, except for the fleas, of which a good assortment remained.  The dug-outs were roofed in with waterproof sheets, buttoned together and held up by pegs which fitted into one another.  These sheets, with the poles, made handy bivouac shelters, easily pitched and struck.  Altogether, their camp equipment was better than ours.