From the Reminiscences of Private Ivanoff by Vsevolod Garshin

The rain was followed by heat. About this time we left the little village where our feet used to stick in the slippery mud, and came on to the main road leading from Yass to Bukarest. Our first march along this road from Tekuch to Berlada will always be remembered by those who made it. It was thirty-five degrees (Réaumur)9 in the shade, and the distance was forty-eight versts. It was perfectly still. A fine dust, full of lime, which was being raised by thousands of feet, hung over the road. It got into our noses and mouths, and powdered our hair so thickly that it was impossible to distinguish its colour.

Settling all over our perspiring faces, it became mud, and turned us into niggers. For some reason we marched in our tunics instead of in our shirtsleeves. The black cloth drew the sun, which literally baked our heads through our black shakos. The almost red-hot stones of the metalled road could be felt through the soles of our boots. The men kept on "falling out. " To add to our misfortunes, there were few wells along the route, and there was for the most part so little water in them that the head of our column (it was a whole division) exhausted the supply, and after frightful crushing and pushing at the wells, we found only a sticky liquid more resembling mud than water. When there was not even this, the men used to fall, utterly done up. On this day in our battalion alone about ninety men fell out along the road. Three died from sunstroke.