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[Page 3]
Four weeks after leaving home.
We were all very glad to be on land again and to have the chance of stretching our legs.
We entrained about four o'clock and proceeded on our way to our training grounds. On the way up we had a chance of viewing this Egypt we had heard so much about. The country is very fertile and is well watered by irrigation channels. Every square inch seemed to be under cultivation.
We were very much amused by the spectacle of big Egyptians riding about on very small donkeys and camels carrying loads that seemed to be as large as houses but in reality were not so big after all.
The people are a very primitive race and their agricultural implements were the same as those you see in pictures of Biblical times. The houses are built of mud and the villages look like huge ant heaps or rabbit warrens.
We reached our camping ground that night about midnight and were that tired out that we just threw ourselves down and went to sleep. We awoke next morning and began to set things right. We found that the place we were at was Heliopolis which means the city of the Sun. It is on of the prettiest places I know. The buildings a very pretty and the Palace (now a hospital) is a most beautiful place. It contains about two thousand rooms. That afternoon I visited the citadel and some of the mosques and a few other places of interest
We settled down to hard training and worked very hard because we were all anxious to get to the front at the earliest possible moment. We were only in the country three weeks before we were ordered away. But before we went I had an opportunity of visiting those