AT AMARA

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 220, 3 September 1917, Page 6

AT AMARA

A FASCINATING AND ANCENT LAND. A Y.M.C.A. LEADER'S IMPKESSION. Kenneth J. Saunders M.A., of the Indian National Y. M.C.A, staff who accompanied the Mesopotamian forces, -writes most interesting impressions of the fascinating and antique scenes amid which they are moving. "Approving Amara" he says, ''the first "building that one sees on the Tigris front is the old Turkish cavalry headquarters, which served for many months as an Indian Soldiers' Club run "by the Y/.M.C.A. Amara is a great town, with the Tigris, on the one side and an ancient, wide canal on the other, and seems much better cared for than Basra. It has a splendid bazaar and the hospitals are excellently fitted with electric fans and lights, and the ice plant is now working satisfactorily. There is a garden also, with a club for convalescent officers, conducted by a lady recently mentioned in despatches. An institute, where the Association secretary is a police officer from India, is the centre of the soldier's life. Its football team, for instance, has played over thirty matches and has not yet been beaten, and its concert party, when you see the exquisite silver work of the Sabaean silversmiths. These are the "star worshippers" of Mesopotamia mentioned on 'the Book of Job, who have formed a curious ecleetric religion, partly Mohammedan, partly Christian, and partly Pagan. They have to live near running crater and over a stream their sacred "book has to be read, and so they have l>een exempted from military service by the Turks. ON A HOSPITAL SHIP. But Amara, too, with many others things of interest, including a gallows where Arab snipers are hung from time to time had to be left soon, and I went on in state up the Tigris on 'boaTd the "Sikkim" an Irrawaddy Plotilla steamer now fitted out by the Uadras Government for hospital duty. She is a splendid boat, well equipped with operating theatre and with one hundred beds, where the sick' and wounded get lovingly cared for. She has made several trips to fetch away our sick and wounded from Kut, and through her bathroom, wall the bullet of a sniper has .found its way. On board was the sanitary Commission. s£nt out from England whether to "whitewash" or investigate remains to be seen; but they seemed pleased with much of the hospital arrangements.

>''. "We landed at the advance base depot, to find that our big Y.M.C.A. marquee had been burnt down the night "before; but there was a full-sized cinema attracting more than a thousand men each night up here in the heart of the- desert, and we arranged to tak« this on as a permanent thing. It ia a great sight to see the Sepoys seated in circles before it, and. away back as far as one can see the serried ranks of British troops standing on the banks of the river.

I spent a most interesting Sunday afternoon in the trenches, trying to find further openings for our work, and- as the forward move has now begun, I am free to say that the Turkish trenches were in places only eighty ;yards away, and that, with the marsh on one side, and the river on the other and a triple line of strongly made and and fortified trenches, the Turk has a very easy position to defend. Up here one saw some interesting sights and heard some good yarns,— one for instance, of a journalist of the oenevofent neutral type, who came asking to be shown everything and was lianded over to the men of the Royal Plying Corps, as the best way of getting vivid and rapid impressions. These sportsmen looped the loop with him, took him into air currents and alarmingly near the Turkish trenches, and lie returned fainting, but impressed. Bis report is awaited with interest. A BIG "BOOST." The whole expedition is now going -with a big "boost" and the staff of the Y.M.C.A. of whom five have recently been mentioned in despatches, arc trying to keep pace and to make Jife sweeter and saner and finer for the men of the Expeditionary Force, who, -whether they know it or i not, are making history In a country with a wonderful' future."