Sir Stanley Maude and other memories . g sunstrokes in the shade must ever be amystery, but perhaps he was not a fat boy at all. Icannot say, as I have not the pleasure of his acquaintance. I think these rides did General Maude harm rather thangood, as he lost a considerable amount of weight, andlatterly began to look very thin and careworn. Flies, which are one of the curses of the East, were in-tolerable in Mesopotamia. Arab villages are rather pesti-lential places; the inhabitants views on cleanliness,decency and sanitation do not coincide with ours. GeneralMaude had considerable difficulty
Sir Stanley Maude and other memories . g sunstrokes in the shade must ever be amystery, but perhaps he was not a fat boy at all. Icannot say, as I have not the pleasure of his acquaintance. I think these rides did General Maude harm rather thangood, as he lost a considerable amount of weight, andlatterly began to look very thin and careworn. Flies, which are one of the curses of the East, were in-tolerable in Mesopotamia. Arab villages are rather pesti-lential places; the inhabitants views on cleanliness,decency and sanitation do not coincide with ours. GeneralMaude had considerable difficulty in enforcing cleanlinessand order in Baghdad at first, but to get rid of the flies to anyappreciable extent was impossible, they worried those whowere well, tormented the sick, and drove the animals nearlymad. Donkeys so often considered stupid have a very good ideaof looking after themselves. In the photograph two areseen standing in the smoke rising from a burning heap ofrubbish, with a view to driving the flies out of their coats,. AND OTHER MEMORIES 31 and this is, I know from experience, about the only way ofgetting rid of them, for a time. Mr, Edmund Candler vividlydescribes the terror of the fly plague in one of his despatches. As I write, he says, I cannot see the end of my pen ! The meals in hospital for the sitting-up cases M^ere allserved under netting or as many flies as food would havebeen eaten. The imperviousness of the natives to flies is astonishingand also rather annoying, they stand talking quite com-placently to you while flies stand thick and black round theireyes and faces as though they were perfectly unaware oftheir proximity. General Maude made every possible arrangement in-genuity could devise, to reduce the annoyance of these pests,and, as far as the wounded were concerned, more or lesseffectively. Soldiers are wonderfully ingenious people. I supposewhen driven into corners they learn to be so, they seemto find a use for everything, even a German min
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