The Middle East.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 6, Issue 249, 9 February 1917, Page 1 (Supplement)

The Middle East.

CAMI'AIG XIXG IN A 1! AIJIA. SOME PICTURESQUE SCENES. (By Gerard Shaw, in an Exchange.) The other day we had a dreadful dust storm; for a long time it was very hot and stuffy, not a breath of air. Sweat trickled down one in streams even while one lay still, then the sun was clouded over, and a faint breeze rustled the palm leaves, and a brown cloud came up over the horizon, .-lowly growing and rising up, up, till it reached right overhead, threatening, with whirlings, and eddies of vellow-brown in the centre, long trailing curtains of a livid brown colour and ragged wisps reaching out across the clear part of the sky. Suddenly it broke. A shrieking wind, a dull red twilight (just the colour of light red paint), almost dark, rivers of dust and gravel rushing in straight lines along the ground, so fa.-t that it made me giddy to watch them. One couldn't see two yards; inside the hut was a dense suffocating fog, everything was thickly powdered: The Arabs looked very weird with their hair and eyebrows pale dust-coloured. We had to go out on column in the middle of it. the gravel and sand stung one like whips. I tied a handkerchief over my nose and mouth. After an hour or more it got brown, then yellow, finally whitish, and then clear, and the moon came out shining quietly through white clouds floating on a cool strongbreeze and no dust anywhere, a great relief.

The next day I saw a real sacred i scarabaeus beetle—large, black, sonictiling like a dor beetle, but not so stout. i It walked backwards with its front legs, holding in its hind leg= a ball of dry mud, or hardened sand, as big as a very large marble; he simply rushed backwards with it. When I very gently took it away from him and let it roll down the hill, ho wasted 110 time looking for it up the slope, but hurried to the bottom, almost at once, and picked it up again. Then he buried it and himself in a bit of soft sand. j A rRETTY PICTURE. I saw a nice little picture the? other day, an Abyssinian <.'irl, or young woman. She had a tiny black baby astride her hip ;she was in front of her house, a little stick and mat hut. Soon she sat down and began shelling some little things like dried peas. All her liens anil goats came round her, piebald and mottled goats aud kids; some reddish blown, some black and white, or grey, and very playful, to try and steal the peas . A young camel tied lip near bv craned his long neck yearningly, and then began to console iiimself with an old basket which he contentedly chewed up aud swallowed. The voung woman was quite nice and pretty." That race of people are the ancient Ethiopians, whom the Egyptians drove south from Egypt. 'I heir features are not negroid at all, though they are as black and smooth as coal itself. 'Hie women have their hair in a big bun 011 their necks, held in a coarse net, tieht and hard. This one was very fat, but clean and finite pleasawt; her arms and shoulders were bare, and she had great amber beads round each arm above the elbow; her robe was white, covered with little purple and red and black patterns. She sat and smiled, showing snow-white teeth Some of the little liens made a rush at her peas; she drove them off with a cry, and a sweeping gesture of shining black arms, the same gesture and cry that one has often seen and heard English fanni girls use. It was the same picture and dull mis and yellows that one sees 111 Cornwall in greens and pinks and whites and pearly greys The other dav I saw some new soldiers from England,' 1 believe. Their arms and face.; and knees were really astonithincrly white. I can hardly 1 clieve that everyone at home would be like th.i , it made one realise that one really is very burnt, though it 1* a yellowish, more sickly colour than English seaside sunburn.

TIIFi BUCKET BATH. Out last night on column. Got back all right, and had a bath at the well, four buckets poured over oneself; it was fine. A good sleep—nearly full moon rising up as I went to sleep, very large aud bright. I have just been to the bath houses. There only one lot; they are used by natives and Indian soldiers as well as by us. Somali negroes, Arabs, Asiatic Jews, and mixtures all flock there. The water is drawn up out of a deep well by camels, a special steep-down path is cut for them. They go up to the top one at a time, then turn round; the Arab hooks the rope 011 to their harness and they walk to the bottom of the path, thus pulling up -T- huge black dripping leather skin, full of water. This is emptied into a tank, aud one has one's bath in a little cubicle place, under a large tap, so at least -'ach customer has fresh water. I rather liked it. The people who wait are very interesting. it costs a half-penny! The streets are straight and wide. Pquare, fiat-roofed houses with every window iron-barred, 110 but .strong wooden shutters inside the bars. The roofs have wooden water spouts which jut out, to take the water away when it does rain, which they say is once in every seven or eight years, but we had a fearful rainstorm two days

aL y o. This is wluil you see a.s yot. walk along the fttrcot—in front of a white house with blue and yellow streaks of paint round door and windows, .-it three camels. Their heads inside the open door, where sits an old man on a stool. I!e twists camel grass into Imndles about a foot long, very neatly, and pushes them into the camel s mouths, one hy one, time after time till they have had enough. This is the method of eaiiul feeding! S'ITDY TX COLOUR. Through the door, behind the old man, is a nivsteiions dinky interior, with a back-door opening into an inner courtyard, a of blue sky above, and ail earthenware pitcher with a group of flies, light against the shadow, lazily weaving a (lance in the still air. Next, door, an old Arab woman in a 10ll tr red yarmeiil like a nightdress, one line fiom ann- to feel C 1 dress, in various colours) wa hos a camel v.illi yellow li>li>i<l. smearing it methodically willi her hand-, (lip|iiti:r it up from a. bowl on the "round: the enme'i is dyed a deep orange (perhaps it kills tinon them). Camel carts stand round, of

old silver-grey unpainted wood; tiny fowls, bantams, scratch in the dust, and run in and out of the houses, roosting where they like. Flocks of pretty brown and dappled goats and kids swarm in the street, and fawn-coloured fat-tailed sheep with hair instead of wool; their horns have grown long and up-curled through lack of exercise; tliey are periodically taken to the shoemaker, who cuts the long toes with a chisel (not painful lor them). A little black girl, just a pretty, little, fat, black animal, smooth and shiny, with hair in tiny parallel braids about two feet long, with largo amber beads round her arms, sits and sings a plaintiff little song on a doorstep; her bright and purple dress glows very brightly. Then there is a sick man, fat and light skinned; he lies all day in the shade of his house, his bed is close to the wall at the side of the road. There he lies, propped up with piles of bright cushions, an enormous silver and brass hookah standing beside him. A group of friends sit round him on stools. They have coffee brought out on a little three-legged table. It is in a long-neck-ed jug with no handle. The friends are desert people, wearing little white cotton jackets, small black turbans, and bright loin cloths reaching to the knees. They have very thick waistbands with two or three silver-handled hooked daggers stuck in them; they have no horses, camels always. SORTING TOBACCO LEAYES. Close to us is a place where a group of negresses, two old, four young, fat and shiny, with snow-white teeth, sit ' on the ground and sort tobacco leaves. They usually have white gowns on with J black and purplish pink patterns, big yellow beads on their arms, and bare feet. I pass them always on the way to the bath house. They are always j cheerful and smiling, sitting in the dust, their dark little grass hut behind them, and their little goats frisking round them, trying to steal tobacco leaves to eat- Fat little nude babies of all shades of brown and black toddle round, and , suck their fingers at one, salute (like I soldiers), and often fall down in the , effort!

When that downpour of rain came we were drenched. Our huts don't keep a drop out. There was three feet of water on the floor; my boots floated away! It came at 2 a.m. I had lent my overcoat and was soaked and cold, but I am none the worse for it. There, I have described the place as well as ■» can, but it is so hot, and the flies arc so bad that I can't write with any ease of comfort. I have found the top of a shell fuse and an empty cartridge case that the Turks fired in the last scrap: star and crescent on them, quite good little relics. I hope to bring them home.