Mohave County miner., 1916-10-14

have been provisioned only by the em- ployment of myriads of slowly moving camels.
 General Murray, however, has built many short lines of railway and high ways which jut out fro mthe canal at right angles toward the fighting line, These do not extend the entire dis tance, but make it possible to assem- ble necessities at raiIheads not far back, and from the termini supplies are moved by camels.
 The building of the roads has been l an arduous process. The earth has been eXcavated literally by basketfuls. Most of the labor has been done by thousands of natives employed at high wages.
 Armed with shovels and baskets, the natives have made the roadbeds, carry ing the sand out on their shoulders. The country where the roads have been run is comparatively level, but in nu- merous instances it has been neces- sary to make quite deep cuts through the dunes.
 For rock ballast stone was brought through the canal from various points and transported by train to the desert.
 Along the sweet-water canal, which runs near the ship waterway, a num- Der of big filtration plants and pump ing stations have been established and pipe lines have been laid to within a short distance of the extreme outposts. The water is syphoned from the plants, which are on the west bank of the canal, under the canal, and is then pumped out to the various stations along the way. From the ends of the lines the water is carried to the out posts by camels. All told the pipe lines now completed total over 100 miles.
 In the. territory between the out posts and the canal there are many well-laid camps for thousands of troops. Everywhere there is intense but methodical activity.
 Neatly built wooden and steel build ings are located where only the Be douin's tent has stood before. Whist ling locomotives and footing automo- piles go rushing past long strings of heavily laden and slow-moving cam els and donkeys. Khah-clad Austral- ian and English soldiers, negro troops from the West Indies, robed and tur- baned Egyptians and Indians in their native garb work together, forming an unusual picture with it's desert setting.
 Health conditions are said to be ex- cellent, the percentage of sickness av- eraging about IF per cent. Few of those in the hospitals are seriously i'll. Certainly the soldiers look exceeding ly fit, and the same may be said of the animals.
 One of the precautions taken for the protection of the canal has been the flooding of considerable tracts of land. Aviators daily scout about the desert and patrol boats continually pass up and down the waterway. Further measures have been instituted which cannot be mentioned here.
 Of the operations in the west there is little to be said. The work of the British troops who are looking after the Senussi tribesmen now consists largely of patrol duty and there is said to be no trouble of consequence.
 The maintenance of martial law ne cessitates the presence of considerable numbers of troops throughout the country for police duty. There ap- pears to be no disposition on the part of General Murray to interfere with the customs and pursuits of the peo- pie except where necessary for the welfare of the military operations. However, he is a stern disciplinarian, and one thing that he has devoted much attention to has been the stamp ing out of various forms of vice which flourish in Egypt. As a result, it is said that the moral tone of the whole country has been raised to a higher level. Many tributes of respect for General Murray's work are heard.
 General Murray insists on personal supervision of all his work. There is no part of the canal zone that he does not know intimately and he spends days at a time inspecting the opera tions. He has his finger on every de tail and he is quick in decision on all questions.
 His plans for the remainder of his campaign are matter of much specu- lation, however. Officers and men oft en look off into the desert and ask one another if the commander ulti- mately will lead them out to battle with the Turks and reclaim this terri