On Arrival We Found A String Of Mules Just Starting, As The Camels That
Had Been Engaged Yesterday Had Never Appeared.
I sent off the servants
and animals, with orders to pitch the tent upon the site of the old camp
of the 42nd Highlanders, within a mile of Kyrenia; we then once more
encroached upon the kindness of Sir Garnet and Lady Wolseley for the
night.
On the following morning we rode to Kyrenia, sixteen miles, and
found tents pitched in a delightful situation, and the camp swept and
arranged in perfect order. There could not have been a better site for a
military camp, as the ground was firm and sloped gradually towards the
sea, above which the elevation may have been about 120 feet. The
beautiful caroub-trees afforded a dense shade for individual tents and
for unlimited numbers of men. The ground had been well drained, and
every care had been taken to ensure the health of the troops; but in
spite of all sanitary arrangements they had suffered severely from
fever, by which, although only four had actually succumbed, and now lay
in the lonely little cemetery close to our tents, the regiment had been
demoralised, and was withdrawn from this lonely position completely
fever-smitten. I made close inquiries among the natives, and all agreed
that the past year, having been unusually wet, had been exceptionally
unhealthy, and the inhabitants had suffered almost to the same degree as
the Europeans. It was painfully clear that when the rainfall was
sufficiently plentiful to produce abundant harvests it at the same time
ensured a crop of fevers.
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