Item 01: Eric Susman war diary, 1 January 1915-4 April 1916 - Page 114
Primary tabs
Transcription
[Page 114]
Wednesday 31 March 1915
Another rest day for the 13th to-day. So after a general clean up of our lines, our tents, and finally ourselves, many of us left camp for Cairo. It is one of the remarkable features of this fascinating city – its power of attraction. The soldiers, to a man almost, are not only beginning to be bored with the lures and the pleasures of Cairo, but they are beginning to detest them. Yet in spite of this, where do they look forward to going most whenever they get the chance – to Cairo, of course. Those wonderful ruins of Memphis, the magnificent museums of this city, in fact, everything of historic interest in this most interesting, most historical of countries, is, to the majority of the Australians, very ordinary and very tiresome. Of course, no one expects them to become learned Egyptologists straight away. But there ought to be present something more besides the one desire for the questionable pleasures of Cairo. And yet the fact still remains – they are tired of them. Why then do we all flock to Cairo every time we get an opportunity. The explanation, I think, lies in that subtle, mysterious and ever present lure of cosmopolitan people of a distinctive city, of a Cairo in a word.