Zeitun
8/12/14
Dear Everybody,
Here we are about six miles from Cairo camped on the edge of the desert & all as happy as larks & as keen as mustard. I wrote last on the boat the day before we left it, but did not get it posted, so now I will send one to one end of NZ & one to the other, & hop that you will receive them all right. I suppose I had better try & give you an account of our doings since we left the boat, which I must say have been many & varied. First of all we did not leave the boast when we first intended to, we got a bustle on the first day we anchored at Alexandria got things ready & stood by expecting the order to move but it did not come, so we unhitched as it were, all the gear we had on the horses, & settled down for another night on board; not however, before we had received definite orders as to when we were to disembark. These came about 8.30 PM. & were to the effect that were off next day the train being timed to leave Alexandria at 2.30 PM, which meant that we had to have all the horses of our squadron & headquarters staff on board by one o’clock. Over & above that we had to load ammunition rations, kit bags, saddle bags & enough fodder to last horse for a fortnight, needless to say we had everything ready I suppose about 2 hours before we were
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to leave. In fact the disembarkation & entraining of the horse went off like clock work, & was done in half the time in which we were given to do it in. Well we had four third class carriages 1:2nd & 1:1st, which seated about 200 men very comfortably. On leaving Cairo & travelling about a mile we ran into some of the most fertile land I have ever seen. For a considerable distance the land was all on one side & the other was bounded by the sea, but ultimately it appeared on both sides, & it was simply a picture. There is not a single spot of it but what is mad use of, & what all the different things that were growing are, I cannot remember, but the majority of it was Cotton, rice, lucerne, maize, cabbage & dates. There are a number of other plants but what they are I do not yet know. This is land is part of the delta, & is subjected to irrigation by canals running through it from the Nile. These canals are all means of transport, & every one we passed over had countless numbers of Arib Dows tied along its banks. How these lands are owned I do not know but they are all worked by natives, & the hovels that they live in would turn you sick to look at. Well if I want this to catch the NZ mail I will have to stop now I will write again soon & try & give you a little more of our doings & mode of living. I had written some post-cards on the boat, but did not get them posted so you will get them with this. Also the package I got at Colombo is just getting away now, but, as the saying is better late than never. Write often. E.S. McI.
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I will send a post card to Kate & Lottie just to let them know all alive & well. Ran in [to] George Menzies in the street in Cairo last night. He is quite well & in g[ood] form.
Please post this to Kate, when finished.
