IN MESOPOTAMIA

Greymouth Evening Star, 17 March 1917, Page 4

IN MESOPOTAMIA

LETTER FROM SAPPER VIC. LAWN.

INTK R ESTI N( i I) ETA ILS.

Writing to lii.M mother and sister, Mrs T. Lawn and Miss L Lawn, of Shakespeare Street, Greymouth, Sap_ per V. 0. Lawn, of the New Zealand Wireless, and with the Inah,n Expeditionary Force "somewhere in Mesopotamia,”' wrote : "At last we have arrived at our destination, and for a time have what might he called a perma.nent home, inasmuch as we don’t go out on trek and our station is not a mobFle one. . . • there being other stations, between us and the front. All the boys are in good form, and with extremely cold nights (December) but warm, sunny days we should all keep tit. The. country passed through is very historical, and an item of special interest, was Ezra’s tomb, of which we had a g>>od view. The country is very bare up here; with the exception of a few date palms here and there, there is no vegetation. Arab camps and villages were numerous, and we had some good views of their ways of living. All the dwellings were made either of mud walls and roofs or of palm leaves laced together. Timber, of course, i* very scarce- The sunsets ate very line, and the colors such as I have never seen before; they make one gaze in xvonder. There are hundreds of nudes and camels bore. .Indians do all the carrying work about the camp. Wo eel a plentiful supply of onions and turnips (grown here), and the meat eoi-k:' np well, so we should all get fat. For my own part, I have put on weight ami am fifty per cent heller than when 1 was in (I roymouth. Vto a.re preparing for the wet season which is due at any time. The floor of the tent has been raised a foot, f o that we will be high and dry. Later, on December Sapper Lawn wrote:- ' "The ruin has started and (he mud and slush are dreadful. The soil does jml absorb the water, consequently the surface becomes very slippery, and there are some funny sights when i ire chaps have to feed and water the liors.es, but we are getting used to the splodge, splodge of boots m the mud. There is no metal about, but J suppose mud is preferable to hot. rand. Have had Dinnie Walshe, an old Reef I. on hoy, with me and we have had some great yarns, about dear old Reeftou. Dinnie Kilgour (Greymouth) ir with us, so the Coast is well repiesented- There are seventeen in our

waggon set. Charlie Barr and Jack Brosnan are hi another set. . . . AN o hear some queer noises round our tent at night. The Indians sing such < piaint son us.. 1 hey seem to keep to about half a dozen notes and sing the mine thing I>v the hour. then the dogs, jackals, hyenas, and sheep kick up a hullabaloo, but one gets used to anything hero. Jt is a great sight to watch the birds rise to Ute sky in the early morning. There are thousands, and thou- amis of atarhligr about : they move oil in flocks and f.,j- a time they cover a portion of the skv, then gradually disappear, like a huge aeroplane. Sparrows are very ihick, ton. I went to a neighboring Aral) village a few days ago. We can laiv a few things there, but, oh. what a dirtv place it is. All articles fot sale are exposed to dust and dirt. Needless to say, we only buy stuff in sealed packets or tins. It is Haul Hint the Arabs do not wash their babies until they are twelve months .-!d. I cannot vouch for the truth of that, but by the h>ok of some of the Youngsters one could believe that they had never been washed at all- Disease must he rife under such conditions.

A!! foreign places are similar, I he--1 it*ve. In .India the poorer class of natives wore similar to the Arabs. Some of our chaps are trying to pick up stray bits <>rthe native language, Inn for inv part 111 bo glad tofoi get tln-re are such races in the world, and vet 1 would not have missed seeing these foreign places I’ or . anything. Time goes verv ipiicklv with US, fo) sve operators are called upon to do more duties than the rest of the jis. and strange to say. keep ill better health. "Virile the climate remams cold, we can work and eat wed. Ab-st of us received gifts from the Auckland Patriotic Society this week. Sports were held <m New Year's Day, the Indians taking great interest m their items, such as tug-of-war, wrestling on horseback and on the ground, j-ack race, mule races-, etc. Hur hoys put in some good work and scored a tTw mazes. The Arabs were out in full force and look part in mi event, o r two,"