Item 06: Letters sent by Robert Christian Wilson to his family, 1918-April 1919 - Page 61
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[Page 61]
I would not like to have to put a summer in down here - it must be like an oven I should think.
Was rather disappointed in the Jordon - it has just been in flood so I expected to see some river, but it was only about thirty yards wide, and our Cudgeegong [Cudgegong] is bigger when its in flood - we crossed the Jordon over a pontoon bridge about midnight in beautiful moonlight, and it reminded me then very much of the creek at Kookendoon. When we crossed over we found that there was a lot of marshy ground on this side, something like a mangrove swamp, and as it was boggy they had made a sort of cordouroy road through it with bushes and small sticks - as we were going along it in the moonlight I began to reflect on all the old conquering armies that had gone over this river in historic times - the Israelites, the Assyrians, etc - but just then a string of camels came along and my mare took it into her head to be frightened and nearly shoved me into the mud and then trod on my heals - after that my reflections were mostly on the character of my mare and that of her ancestors so I'm afraid I did not get the right inspiration some how. In the hills at the top of the Dead Sea on the Jerusalem side is a stone which burns like coal. There is tons of it about and it is just like slate and its A1 for boiling up on or when you are short of wood.