GURKAHS AND COLONIALS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 260, 13 April 1915, Page 6

GURKAHS AND COLONIALS.

MUTUAL ADMIRATION. SUEZ CANAL INCIDENTS. The following is an extract from a letter just received from Egypt by the parents of an officer of the 4th, Otago, Regiment, -who wrote on February 25: "To-morrow, we shall migrate back to Cairo, having had a good time here. Vor the last fortnight we have bec:i stationed on the east side of the canal with a company of the 7th Gurkhas, and, at there were no other troops for two miles or more, we pulled together very well. Immediately previous *o our arrival here, another company of our regim»:it had been here and the Gurkhas gave ihem a great send-oft'. They insisted <>n moving all our men's transport into the boats and it was a sight to see their eagerness to do their utmost. Our company immediately chummed up, and made good friends. 'Our men were simply adored by the Indians. We taught them 'Tipperary,' and liakas. One could hear them sometimes in the night quietly practising songs over together. It is wonderful how a community of interest can unite races so wide apart as ourselves and the Gurkhas from the hills of India. Neither understands the other's language in the least, yet our chaps used to sit in the Gurkhas' tents at night, when off duty, and play cards with thorn and explain the latest war news from the front by means of illustrations from the papers. It was quite a common thing to s?e a Gurkha audi one of our own sentries both peering at an object out in the desert, using the same telescope anil comparing notes in mute- eloquence.

'I saw an incident which shows how grateful and intelligent they are. There was a 'scrap' at , a few miles further down, and a cruiser transported the Gurkhas down from our post. One was killed, and the cruiser supplied a Union Jack, and a firing party and all the oflicers turned out. The honor paid to thoir dead comrade, and the impressiveness nf it, moved many of them to tears. It was said by them that their comrade Was given the same honor as was given to Lord Roberts. They will never forjwt this as long as their regiment exists »ad next time the cruiser came up the canal they gave her an ovation. "They are a long, way the finest troops I have seen and they are simply perfect Boldiers. They have roceived a dispensation freeing them from all racial and religious customs, from the Rajah of Nepaul, and they can thus mix quite freely with white or Christian races."