Series 03: John Brady Nash letters, January 1914-December 1915 - Page 74
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[Page 74]
is with the Australian troops who are encamped outside Cairo. I know that the message has been forwarded but I do not know whether he has received it.
10 p.m. We are just dropping anchor outside the town of Suez, where we shall probably be during the night. Every one is on deck viewing the lights on the land & on the ships which surround us. An arab dealer has been allowed on board, he is doing a big trade in cigarettes & post cards. I shall purchase a few with a view to sending them to the girls and you in the morning.
Suez is a very ancient town, being represent so long ago as four thousand years. Even then fresh water was flowing along a canal which starting from below Cairo went across the desert to where Ismailia lies today and then went south to Suez. It is said that up the Nile from the mouths and thence by the canal, boats could sail from the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea. The people who built the pyramids, (ca. 2850 to 2700 B.C. – IV Dynasty – Kings Snofru [also spelt Snefru], Kheops [also spelt Cheops], Khephren [also spelt Chephren], Mencheres [possibly also spelt Menkaure]), would have but a small work to cut a canal through the desert. It is believed that in the days of some of the Egyptian potentates more than 4000 years ago a salt water canal almost on the same line as the present canal served for salt water to flow between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea. However that may be the fresh water canal that was built during the Middle Empire some 2000 years before Christ, still serves for the flow of fresh water to Ismalia and the towns along the Canal from Port Said to Suez. It fell into decay at times.
12.1.15, 12-30 p.m. The anchor is being weighed and we shall be off again in a few minutes. I send you some pictures of Suez. It is not yet a large town. The new houses having sloping