QUEER BRITISH FLEET.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 8, Issue 16, 20 January 1916, Page 5

QUEER BRITISH FLEET.

WADDLING LP THE TIGRIS. BOUND FOR BAGDAD. .Sir Mairk Sykes, M.P., who lias recently been on a visit to the Indian Expeditionary Force in Mesopotamia, gives a picturesque account of metai and machinery which is at present flying the white ensign on the Tigris (says a Home paper). There are paddle-steamers which once plied with passengers, but now waddle along with a barge on either side, one perhaps containing a portable' wireless station and the other bullocks fok" heavy guns ashore. There are . once respectable tugs which stagger along under a weight of boiler plating and are' armed with guns of varying calibre; ther e is a launch which pants indignantly between batteries of 4.7'5, Hooking like a sardine between two cigarette boxes. There is a steamer with a Christmas tree growing amidships, in the branches of w.hich its officers fondly imagine they ar i invisible to flriend or foe.

There is also a ship which is said to have started life as an aeroplane in Singapore, shed its wings, but kept its aerial propeller, took to water, and became a hospital; its progress is attended by a sustained series of detonations, .which serve it as an escort among the Arabs, who attribute its method of progress to Eblis alone. And this fleet is the cavalry screen, advance guard, rear guojrd, flank guard, railway, general headquarters, heavy artillery, line of communication, supply depot, police force, field ambulance, aecrial hangar, and base of sapply of the Mesopotamia!) Expedition.

Inland the tribesmen roam in anarchy under thdr German leaders; on the shore peaceful commerce is protected ft*om their onslaught by these little bands of exiles. T.hese small detachments remain at their posts as weeks run into months, months into quarters, and the quarters circle the year..

As for the people' to be found Sir Mark says that Turkish corruption, smugglers, and a year's war hav« brought a wealth of ammunitions; without any ■ they are neitht-r for Bijfl on the day outskjjj ""'