Item 04: Letters sent by Robert Christian Wilson to his family, 1916 - Page 83

[Page 83]

No. 4 Aux. Hospital
Abbassia
20th June, 1916

My dear Mother
I only wrote to Father yesterday but I must write and tell you of our trip to the Pyramids while it is still fresh in my mind.
It is all thanks to Sister Skinner that we were able to go as there is not supposed to be any leave from infectious hospitals but somehow she managed to get it for herself and six of us and so off we went.
We left at 2.30 got a tram and went up to Heliopolis and there got another tram back to Cairo.
They are electric trams just likes our Sydney ones and they go along quietly ringing a bell in the towns but when they get out a bit they get onto a sort of railway line fenced both sides, and forget they are trams and turn into trains and go like the devil and get a whistle like an engine instead of the bell. In Cairo we managed to get a beautiful easy car and they agreed to take the 7 of us for 130 Piastres which was pretty cheap I thought. We crossed the Nile on the Kasr-el-nile bridge and then got onto the most beautiful road I have ever seen in my life.
It is about 12 miles out and the whole way the road is asphalted and level enough to play billiards on and there are beautiful trees each side which form a complete archway over the road the whole way; in the middle of the day I don't think one bit of sun could shine on the road anywhere.
There is a canal all the way out along the side of the road and so of course there are fields all the way.
They are just carting their hay in now and it did look like the
over