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[Page 96]
Wednesday 22 March 1916
A hot day.
After breakfast went round to Pension Wales & found that Oll had left for Alexandria leaving on her table the wire from Rid stating that he was abt to embark at Alexandria.
After making some necessary purchases went to "Old Cairo" & spent the morning there, getting some fairly good photos of scenes there, altho' no photo nor any description convey a correct idea of the filth & squalor prevailing. The buildings were old tumbledown places of stone & muddy concrete thrown together anyhow. At one place I saw the "concrete" being mixed for a new building, stone lime being slaked & then mixed with Nile mud in place of sand, so it is hardly to be wondered abt that the places are falling to pieces.
On the flat roofs were drying ground for clothes, stacks of rough forage for camels, firewood, & all sorts of odds & ends, not forgetting filthy rubbish. In the buildings were sheep & goats, fowla & chickens, dogs etc.
At one spot near the main street was a blacksmith's shop where fowls were seen on the anvil & on a chair in the shop, quite in possession, reminding me a good deal of some of the things I saw in Indian huts in Fiji.
An open air sale, of, all sorts of stuff bore a striking resemblance to the Indian bazaars, excepting that, as far as I can remember, there were only men present. Going thro' the barrow streets, - only 6 ft wide in places & yet traversed by donkeys & camels, - one had to