MORTALITY AMONG BRITISH TROOPS.

Dunstan Times, Issue 1291, 26 November 1886, Page 4

MORTALITY AMONG BRITISH TROOPS.

a An officer attached to the Biitish cnmp at Assouan gives a dismal of the sufferings of tho troops. He says:— " This is a small mud village on tlie left bank of tho Nile, near the Second Cataract, but has greatly improved in importance since our occupation. It U merely a green patch, or a small dusterof date-palms and watermelons, i i the midst of the desert. All around us is trackless sand, and Mack, rocky hills, like • rouze, dotted here and there on the surface. There is never meh a thing as a drop of rain, and all day long tho sun blazes forth without even a clouJ to protect the earth from its rays. There is nearly always a fiery blast blowing, which carries burning Band in clouds into every place, and gets into your ears, mouth, nose, and eve, to the great injury of the latter. | 'The temperature rang s from HOdegto 124d0g, and has gone up several times to 126deg. Ten mtn died in oho day in June from sunstroke and enteric. I have seen six coffins going down the hospital hill together; and one time there were so many deaths that there was no room

in the mortuary, and wo had to place our dead in rows on the sand and cover them with canvas, , The medical staff had frightful work, up all night with men in the mania of fever, who converted the fever ward a into a .tana* tic asylum with their yells and frantic gestures. Nearly all who died were young men between nineteen and twenty two years. They were gone* rally ill a' out four days, and then died like raving maniacs. Over 1200 men have gone down river invalided, many of whom diet! at places on the way, and had to be buried without coffins and in the sand. We lost a lot of officeis, including two majors All day lung nothing used to be heard but the band playing the Dead March in ‘Saul.’ Nothing remains here now of the splendid regiments that came up the river a year or so ago, but m’sen< able incomplete-looking squads of men, more suitable for a convalescent home than active service."