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[Page 97]
pick one's steps very carefully: the dirt & filth were beyond description.
The heavy fall of rain last Sunday did a fair amount of damage, pools of water everywhere showing that no provision whatever is made for surface run-off. Such a place must be a real hot-bed for disease as I hear it is also for crime.
At one spot I came upon a square room where school was going on, the teacher sitting cross-legged on a high chair & having round him a group of perhaps 20 boys (no girls) more or less dressed in the usual style of loin cloth, jacket & red fez & having tin sheets from which they were being taught to read in Arabic. Some of them had such bright eyes & merry faces & one could not help wishing that their environment could be improved.
Here & there groups of women sitting down gossiping, all talking together in shrill tones. The men kept markedly to themselves, sometimes in groups of twos & threes, at others sitting in solitary state outside their hovels smoking their "hookah".
In spite of all the offending odours it was an interesting morning. During the afternoon was on duty in the same low locality, but did not have any very exciting experiences.
After tea at night developed the photos. A mail of 9 letters was brought to me from Heliopolis, letters mainly from C South dated up to 7th Feb.
Thursday 23 March 1916
Another warm sunny day.
Spent the greater part of the morning with Oll who had come back from Alexandria the previous night & was looking rather