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[Page 26]
The whole of this big place is now converted to a Hospital, and at present contains both of the Hospitals and 60 or 70 nurses with about 30 doctors and 230 men. It is a huge building, one of the biggest hotels in the world, and certainly the costliest. Heliopolis Oasis where it is built is 2 or 3 miles from the ancient Heliopolis, and it was around here that the Turks finally defeated the Egyptians and obtained their long mastery of over Egypt which has so recently terminated. It was here too that the French defeated the Turks. The "oasis" was till a few years ago just a bit of the desert less bare slightly than the remainder. Then a big Belgian [indecipherable] grown wealthy with Congo planes and rubber determined to outdo Monte Carlo. They laid on water & electricity, built streets, tramways, magnificent rows of palatial shops, and erected this huge pile of [indecipherable] stone and marble with over 800 rooms and beautiful grounds. Then the Egyptian Government under the influence of the British Resident refused it a license and it was never used. It has been kept in good repair by caretakers in hope that the Govt [Government] will relent. I cannot describe the magnificence of the place, with its inlaid marble walls, its polished granite pillars, its great high arched halls, its inlaid floors of marble and wood. But it is said to have cost 2 million pounds sterling – the building alone, and the fittings another million. I have a sumptuous bedroom and will sleep tonight in a solid brass bedstead, with electric light and telephone in the [indecipherable] I have a luxuriant bathroom next door which I share with my neighbour Major Gordon. I wish you were able to see what roughing it in active service is like!! Even the broad footpaths are paved with marble. The shops are open and doing a busy trade with the soldiers