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JERUSALEM FROM THE AIR

DAMASCUS FROM THE AIR

3rd L.H. CAMP AT BELAH, A FAVOURITE RESTING GROUND BY THE SEA SOUTH OF GAZA

This marked the passing of the desert. On the evening of the night march which brought us close to Rafa, our troops were still in the waste in which they had spent nearly a year without a glimpse of civilization or verdure. Travelling all night through the heavy sand, they came, just before dawn, on sounder going for their horses, and daylight showed them a wide, rolling landscape, gay with brilliant winter flowers—the fringe of Palestine.

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No survey, however incomplete, of this fine campaign should fail to mention the countless little desert expeditions in Western and Central Sinai, in the early days of the fighting. These had various purposes. Sometimes they were political, but more than once they led to sharp fighting. The first time Australians were actually engaged east of the Canal was when the 9th Light Horse Regiment (chiefly South Australians, with a few Victorians), by a long night march and clever manœuvre, swooped down and bagged the Turkish outpost garrison at Jifjafa. Then there was a fine dash by the 11th Light Horse Regiment to Nekhl, the British pre-war administrative centre in Sinai. Later, two interesting expeditions were made up the Wady Muksheib, the ancient and central route across Sinai by which the Turks came in their feeble attack on the Canal, early in 1915. The drawback of that route was the shortage of water, and along the Wady bed some ancient power had excavated huge cisterns which filled during the rains. These cisterns are still intact. Once, the Light Horsemen pumped them out, and so closed the route for that season to the Turks; going out again, they sealed and covered them so as to make their rediscovery by the enemy very difficult.