Niebuhr Attributes The Extraordinary Mortality Of His Companions, Amongst Other Causes, To A Want Of Stimulants.

Though these might doubtless be useful in the cold weather, or in the mountains of Al-Yaman, for men habituated to them from early youth, yet nothing, I believe, would be more fatal than strong drink when travelling through the Desert in summer heat.

The common beverage should be water or lemonade; the strongest stimulants coffee or tea. It is what the natives of the country do, and doubtless it is wise to take their example. The Duke of Wellington's dictum about the healthiness of India to an abstemious man does not require to be quoted. Were it more generally followed, we should have less of sun-stroke and sudden death in our Indian armies, when soldiers, fed with beef and brandy, are called out to face the violent heat. At the same time it must be remembered, that foul and stagnant water, abounding in organic matter, is the cause of half the diarrhoea and dysentry which prove so fatal to travellers in these regions. To the water-drinker, therefore, a pocket-filter is indispensable. [FN#2] Al-Shark, "the East," is the popular name in the Hijaz for the Western region as far as Baghdad and Bassorah, especially Nijd. The latter province supplies the Holy Land with its choicest horses and camels. The great heats of the parts near the Red Sea appear prejudicial to animal generation; whereas the lofty table-lands and the broad pastures of Nijd, combined with the attention paid by the people to purity of blood, have rendered it the greatest breeding country in Arabia.

[FN#3] I mean a civilised column. "Herse" is the old military name for a column opposed to "Haye," a line. So we read that at far-famed Cressy the French fought en battaille a haye, the English drawn up en herse. This appears to have been the national predilection of that day. In later times, we and our neighbours changed style, the French preferring heavy columns, the English extending themselves into lines. [FN#4] The Albanians, delighting in the noise of musketry, notch the ball in order to make it sing the louder. When fighting, they often adopt the excellent plan-excellent, when rifles are not procurable-of driving a long iron nail through the bullet, and fixing its head into the cartridge. Thus the cartridge is strengthened, the bullet is rifled, and the wound which it inflicts is death. Round balls are apt to pass into and out of savages without killing them, and many an Afghan, after being shot or run through the body, has mortally wounded his English adversary before falling. It is false philanthropy, also, to suppose that in battle, especially when a campaign is commencing, it is sufficient to maim, not to kill, the enemy. Nothing encourages men to fight so much, as a good chance of escaping with a wound-especially a flesh wound. I venture to hope that the reader will not charge these sentiments with cruelty.

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