Los Angeles herald., 1905-10-16
MEN ARE BITTEN
BY RABID WOLVES
TERRIBLE SUFFERING OF A
SURVEYING PARTY
Fifty Members of British Mission Sent
to the WiIds of Sistan Lose
Their Lives-Thousands
of Camels Killed
Special to The Herald.

Special to The Herald.
LONDON, Oct. 15.-A remarkable
story of hardship and suffering is told
by the mission under Colonel A. H,
MacMahon, which has returned to
England after spending two and half
years demarking the boundary between
the Persian and Afghan territory in
Sistan, about which there was a quar-
rel.
No fewer than fifty members of the
mission lost their lives, some from heat
and thirst others from being frozen to
death, and some from drowning and
hydrophobia, while nearly 5000 camels
and 100 horses succumbed.
The mission consisted of eleven Brit
ish officers, a large staff of survey and
irrigation experts, an escort of 200 ma
tive infantry, sixty cavalry with
large supply of transport, including
the Fifty-eighth Camel corps-in all
total of 1900 men, 200 horses. and
2200 camels. AS the base was at
Quetta, 500 miles across an almost
waterless desert, whence all stores eX-
cept grain and fodder and g few local
commodities had to be imported, the
difficulty of feeding the mission can be
we'll appreciated.
Five weeks were taken in the march
of 500 miles over uninhabited, waterless
country between Quetta and Sistan,
and three men and a number OF AMI
mails were frozen to death. The camp
was formed at Kuhak, bare, desolate
spot, Wind-sWept. with alternatlons or
extreme heat and cold, and mere the
mission stayed two and a half sum-
mers.
The work of demarcation was very
difficult. South of the Helmund river,
for ninety miles, the line ran through
an absolutely waterless desert IN
which the pillar-building parties had to
spend six weeks, being dependent en-
tirely upon water brought from consld-
erable distances. North of this section
the boundary was through country
liable to inundation, in which pillars
of a massive, permanent nature had
to be built.
The last twenty miles of the frontier
again ran up the waterless gracial
slopes of the Siah Koh mountain. The
demarcation was finally completed at
the end of last year.
Lives Lost, Map Saved
One of the most tragic experiences
VISA the death of an Indian surveyor
while on duty in the waterless desert
before been visited or surveyed. He
ventured too far from water, and,
owing to the intense heat, was unable
either to move forward or to retrace his
steps. He and seven of his followers
paid the penalty with their lives.
The incident was marked by the hero
ism of one of his men, who, seeing the
surveyor die determined to rescue the
map for which so many lives had been
given. He cut it off from the board
of the plane table, and, knowing that
he could not long retain consciousness,
wound it under his waistcloth round
his body.
Then he blindly started northward
in the hope of reaching water. The
four men who started with him col
lapsed, and he himself remembers no
more than coming to consciousness
at night time lying in a pool of water
by the Krash river.
Here he was found by a wandering
Afghan. who carried him on his back
to an Afghan village, where his life
was saved after receiving careful at
tention. The bodies of his unfortu-
nate companions were afterward dis
covered in a completely mummified
condition.
Last winter all the jackals with
which Sistan abounds for some un-