Primary tabs
Transcription
[page 8]
13
-7-
natural and partly artificial being protected by an island with a breakwater on either side of it. The usual collection of P. & O. steamers was in the harbour. I don't think there is a port in the Mediterranean or the East in which you will not find at least one of these aristocrats. And there is no doubt they are aristocrats. No matter what harbour you may go into, if there is a P & O boat there - even one of their cargo ships - she seems to shine out from all the other vessels. We first saw the French coast along a little to the East of Toulon and had a good view of that city and also of the big shipbuilding centre at La Ciotat. The harbour of Marseilles is rather an historic place with its Island of Monte Christo and the Chateau D'If, and the numerous churches situated on the pinnacles of sugarloaf hills which surround the harbour. Some of these churches have cable trolleys up to them and I should imagine that those that dont secure very few threepences now that so many of their agile parishioners are away fighting. The harbour inside the breakwater was well filled with shipping including the Hospital Ship "La France" the largest vessel in the French mercantile marine and formerly a Transatlantic liner. Here also was the Hospital Ship "Braemer Castle with the whole Australian No 2 General Hospital Staff aboard. This was the Ghezireh Hospital which did such good work during our Gallipoli operations. They are now to start work in France . What strikes one first on landing in France is the amount of mourning displayed. There is hardly a woman to be seen who is not in black and such sights as a newly made widow walking on the arm of a wounded son are frequent.
Our camp at Marseilles was in a plum orchard about 2 miles out and a beautiful spot it was. It was not a large camp, probably it