Item 01: Frank Hurley war diary, 21 August-28 October 1917 - Page 16
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[Page 16]
just preparatory to taking up active work again. I will never forget the beauty & glorious color contained in this country. The huts tents surrounded by wheat-fields & great hayricks, with occasional gay tiled cottages set in their midst & everything just alive with Khaki-clad figures.
The roads too are thronged with transports (motor) teams & riders. A feverish activity strangely out of contrast with the country & the leisurely methods of the peasantry, husbanding the grain with a sickle or making tiny furrows with a small push plow. Tedious & slow as are their methods, the entire country is closely under agriculture. St. Omer, we discovered to be quite a large town, & after numerous enquiries in pigeon French & calls at various shops, I managed to secure a camp bed. I am now pleased with my purchase, which cost me 40 Francs, (a little cheaper than in London) it being