From Mesopotamia

Horowhenua Chronicle, 22 December 1915, Page 3

From Mesopotamia

A card conveying the season' 6 greetings all the Avay i'rom Mesopotamia, has been received by Mr M. Foselia. TJie card was sent iby Mr S. Brewster, well-known in Levin, trom Beam, a town on the Shat-el-Arab (the river formed by the junction of tEe Tigrib and the Euphrates rivers), some d<s bance inland from the head of the Persian Gulf. Mr Brewster, at the time the card left, was a mechanic in the flying corps. The card is an interesting one. On the front is depicted a soldier on guard. In the background Appear the fiV-roofed buildings peculiar to the country and in the middle distance is a field gun. On the back is the coat of arms of the corps, its six divisions, being occupied: by an alligator, flies, mosquitoes, a tortoise, and the insect that causes the soldier so much misery, while hanging on ia date palm alongside Is a thermometer with the mercury registering 130 degrees in the shade, the whole telling eloquently of what the men in that campaign have to contend with. On the inside pages are the season's greetings and the following lines:— "Greetings from Mesopotamia, Your knowledge of which should shame yer, In this so-called Garden of Eden Our troops have done some doughty deeds in,

We're not in the lime-light new, Flies, such heat you never knew; Fevers, Arabs. Turks, tluists. lin'lr,. Shells and bullets are our toils; But now it's getting somewhat cold, Now we think of triends of old, Audi hope, that when this reaches you Huns and wars are finished to.