ACTIVITIES IN EGYPT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 24 February 1940, Page 6

ACTIVITIES IN EGYPT

MESSAGE FROAI GENERAL FREYBERG START MADE ON ADVANCED TRAINING. HIGH STANDARD OF HEALTH MAINTAINED. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON. This Day. The following message has been received by the Prime Minister (Mr Savage) from Major-General Freyberg in Cairo: “Time still refuses to stand still for members of the Second New Zealand Expeditionary Force. The days which we spent in settling, down in a concentration area on the Egyptian sands have flown by, and we feel ready for the inauguration of our advanced training programme. In .spare time during the last few days, our eyes have been opened to some of the endless wonders and sights of Cairo and its surroundings. Leave is now being granted each evening, also on Saturday afternoons, and already most of us have been carried in fast, trains along the Nile to huge mixed cities. Organised tours to places of interest are being arranged. "We seem popular with the people of Cairo, whose hospitality has warmed us to the city. The native language is beyond us, but schoolday French is proving more than useful. Our trips have impressed us with the intense war time activities all round us. for we have seen and heard of canvas cities even larger than ours, and have met troops from England, Scotland and India. R.A.F. planes have excited us with mock fighting, just, above our heads. The weather here, with brilliant days and cool nights, suits us ideally and the general standard of health has probably never been higher. Every care is taken to keep it so, even to cleaning hands with disinfectant before and after food. There are good navy, army and air force institutes, of which several are established here. Part of our transport equipment, in the form of vans, trucks, cars and motor-cycles has been handed over to us and despatch riders have already experienced the thrill of careering over the pebbly, undulating desert in the shadow of the Pyramids. Our days are truly filled with activity in this new land, but our thoughts continuously span thousands of miles to New Zealand.”