Item 01: Oliver Hogue letters, November 1914-29 December 1915 - Page 47
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[Page 47]
8
went under a huge railway embankment and bivouacked on the bank of a canal fed from the Nile. A troop of Gyppies hung on our flank all the while and at each halt made hay selling oranges and cigarettes. One thing you should remember - the desert is not absolutely level. Here and there for a few miles back from the Nile it is as smooth as a billiard table. But further out it is all kopjes & hills & ridges & wadis. (a wadi is a full or dry creek),. The creek runs once in two years). The hills are only about 300 feet high but they often rise sheer from the desert. - like bastions & in the bad old days, must have witnessed some merry skirmishing. There are remains of forts and walls all over the place.
On the right of our line of march lay the Nile with its green strip of verdure either side & a dozen pyramids out Westward. It was hot. The mirages seemed to shimmer on the rim of the Earth &