AN HISTORIC ACTION

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 7, Issue 138, 13 February 1915, Page 2

AN HISTORIC ACTION

SCENE OF THE FIGiiTINC*,

The action which took plae on the oastem bank of the Suez Canal last week possessed several strange features. It took place on some of the '•oldest ground" in history, in country that has during two or three thousand years, witnessed the coming and going of many armies of invasion. Strange indeed it is that the defence of this historic ground and of the great waterway collecting East and West, should be shared by soldiers from the "now countries" of New Zealand and Australia, with men from the Mother Country and swarthy warriors from India fighting the common cause against hordes of Turks and Syrians, led by Germans.

The fighting commenced in the small hours of last Wednesday week morning", and lasted half-way through the afternoon, when the enemy was forced to retire into the sandy desert wastes. The artillery was supported by the guns of a warship, which had steamed up the Canal, and for a time the fighting wan carried on during a heavy sandstorm. Under such novel conditions- the New Zealanders received their baptism of fire.

From the places mentioned in the cable message it is possible to give a description of the scone of the fighting. The. Canal, on the west bank of which runs the railway to Ismailia, runs Vliie south in a perfectly straight line through Lake Menzaleh, close to its

eastern shore. The brackish waters of this lake extend over an area of about 1000 square miles, covering what-was once one of the most fertile districts in Egypt, and was intersected by the three most important arms of the Nile in ancient times, the I'elusiae, the Taiutie, and the Menclesian. tin til a few years ago the lake extended east Of the Canal, but extensive reclamation resulted in a large area of dry land being opened out. A few week:-: ago, however, this land was refloodd as part of the scheme of defence of the Canal, and probably the water extends eastward and southward to within a short distance of El Kantara ("the bridge.")

Kantara is on the isthmus separati ) Lake Mcnsialeh from Lake BaJah, and is 27-1 miles from Port Said. Over this, isthmus led the ancient caravan route from Egypt to Syria. The railway s-.i Port Said has a station at Kantara. and the village, with its mosque, lie's tfl the eastern bank of the Canal. A hill on the left commands a view of the surrounding country.

Past Kantara the Canal traverses Lake Balah, from which it is separated by low embankments. At El Ferdan, at the south end of the lake, the Canal passes through, the first cutting, through the hills of El Gish ("the embankment") which cross its course at an average height of 52 feet above sealevel. From them can be seen a gieat part of the Isthmus the frowning Ataka mountains, above Suez, the mountains of Sinai, the course of the Canal, ami the green expanse of the ißtter Lakes. At the end of the cutting the Canal

i enters Lata? Thnsah (the Crocodile j Lake), the dredged channel through! I whic-b is indicated by stakes. The lake | is about 61 square miles in urea, and of ' a beautiful pale green colour. On its i north bank lies the town of Lsniailia, j whence the railway runs across eoun- ! try to Cairo. Leaving Lake Thnsah : the Canal passes the foot of the Gebel Maryam. which an .Arabian legend points out as the place where Miriam, when smitten with leprosy for her disapproval of the marriage of Moses with j an Ethiopian woman, spent seven days, beyond the precincts of the camp of the 'lsraelites (Numbers Xii.)

Toussoun (or Ti-sun) is a small village, on the west bank of the Canal, less than a mile below Lake Thnsah. Excavations near Toussoun have led to the discovery of many interesting fossil remains of large animals belonging to the Miocene tertiary formation. About five miles further on from Toussoun is the cutting which conducts the Canal through, the rocky barrier of the Serapeum. The Serapeum is exactly midway between Lake Timsah and the Bitter Lakes, through which the Canal curves until it passes through the fifteen miles stretch of sand superimposed on limestone to the Gulf of Suez.