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[Page 54]
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triangles sharply silhouetted against the red horizon. They look like little toy tents yet when along side them their magnitude staggers us.
The days are so hot now that helmets are necessary but Ive known it much hotter in Sydney and Bourke & Cobar than Ive just experienced it in Egypt. But if we have the everlasting desert wilderness one one side, we also have the oasis of Maadi on the other. It never rains here: at least the annual rainfall is under one inch. It has however tried to rain several times but has not even wet the ground. Yet is Maadi a joy to the senses. The irrigationist has caused the desert to blossom as the rose & Maadi is like an English village with gracious gardens & green luscious fields and rippling Canals.
I have already discoursed at length on the 'bakshish' tendencies of the Gyppies. [words obscured] to them now & we are now able to conjure up a stony heart & shout ''Imshi" [Go away] to the niggers whose importance used to distress us. Yet sometime the good natured grin on the faces of the youngsters gets the better of our judgment & we part up a half piastre (1 ¼ d).
I have already hinted at the weekend revels. Mostly on Saturday night the officers bolt into Cairo. There is always a dance at the Continental Hotel & we always have a good time. (Wish you girls could comandeer the magic carpet and be transported there some night). There are several Australian ladies there; the ones you would know of being Misses Chisholm, Chirnside, Norton & several of the officers wives and daughters. Mostly we dance till midnight , then we have supper. Then we dance. I also plead guilty to visiting other dancing hells - beg pardon, halls in Cairo. They start to be exciting about midnight