TROOPS IN EGYPT

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 121, 20 April 1940, Page 10

TROOPS IN EGYPT

SEEING THE SIGHTS. (N.Z.E.F. Official Ac us Service.) T March V. “Well, I suppose that taught him that you can i play around with the Pyramids it, was A’apoleon JJonaparie of whom our companion was .apouising.-Pausing lor a well-earned bream on a iuuc piatrorm Hollowed out just under hallway up the side, of the Great, i'yrumiu, wo had been tola by our gmue how Aapoieon, in the course oi his conquest or itgypi, had' conceived the mea ,i|r making a gun emplacement' there. But tile steep sates oi this enduring nioiufk ment to an ancient civilisation hit® ueiied his army s eiforts lo drag tfii'e gun into position. aihl we, who stouu ttiere nearly a century and u-hali later,, lounil it pretty easy to realise how even the wiles oi the famous Frenchman were foiled by tins vast pile of stone.

Then we started upwards again, and the strenuous climb set us thinking that this was a sort oi busman’s holiday for soldiers oi the 2nd New Zealand Expeditionary Force who in a lew hours’ time would be drilling hard again on dusty parade grounds somewhere in the hazy distance. As a respite from marching and wheeling and sloping arms wo were spending a ■crowded morning in iccording for Now Zealand some of the tilings which her sons are seeing and doing in this fascinating country. And flint is how wo came fo be scaling the Pyramid early on this bright, late winter day. ft was the highlight of our excursion, for the climb seemed to take us to the top of this- rather flat world in which we are now living. Standing at the summit. on blocks of stone worn smooth by the movement of. thousands of pairs of feet and decorated and redecorated with initials carved by thousands of penknives, we were able to look down on the huge city of Cairo, sprawling across the green ribbon of fertile land that lies between two deserts. In another direction the Nile Delta stretched like a patchwork quilt far beyond our range of vision; on still another side mile after mile of undulating sand shimmered in the growing heat. The view is well worth the climb, hut it is pretty easy to become discouraged. if you stand at the base of the Pyramid and stare upwards too long at the row upon row of massive stone blocks. The thing seems to grow and grow' until it tends to frighten you off. Yet the 450 f- ascent takes comparatively little effort and time. The wisest plan is to choose a guide from among the horde which leaps out, seeking your favour, the minute von get to within stone’s throw of the Pyramid, lor although the route, to the top is well worn it is considered quite easy to -go astray. The man we picked bounded ahead of us like an antelope, hut he had the happy knack of suggesting, just as our lxiots began to feel like lead weights, that we should slop and rest. Even though thousands of tourists have made the ascent. [ suppose every one of them has regarded the moment of reaching the top as one of triumph, and our case was no exception. “Guide-book stuff'’ it might be. Imt this was something to write home about! Our guide, bv the way. musthare been wise to this human failing, for lie was proifipt in inviting us to add our names to the thousands already carved in the stone. “See!' 1 he cried. “General Gordon . . . and over there, King Edward.”

Down to earth again, wo found it a mere step to the spot where the inscrutable but somewhat tattered face of the Sphinx looks u.nbJinkingly over the dingy outskirts of ‘the city. There is a story that this enigmatic lady’s nose was blown away by a shot from one of Napoleon’s guns, but an Egypi ti.an friend assured us that the damage was really the result of wind and sand. We left the ancient and symbolical, and found the ancient and utilitarian. It was in the form of a wooden plough driven by a native labourer behind two oxen, working in a. typical Nile V-allev field. Explaining through our Egyptian friend that lie was a British farmer and .wanted, to see how the plough worked, my companion took over the job and cm new furrows with the primitive implement while the native encouraged the oxen with wellaimed clods of earth. He lived too close to the Pyramids not to know what “backsheesh” (money for nothing) means, and .he took our half-piastre (about l)d) more or less as a matter of course. Still, it was worth a few hours’ wages to him. There was interest of a deeper kind for us in a visit we paid to one of the several Cairo cemeteries in which lie many of New Zealand’s Great War dead. We were more than gratified at the surroundings of the almost countless symmetrical lines of simple headstones —fresh, green lawns, box hedges, ornamental trees and flowers in profusion. The English caretaker of the cemetery told us that no fewer than 157 New Zealanders were buried there, lying side by side with soldiers who served with the armies of Britain and Australia. We saw the familiar fernleaf on many a headstone, and read the names of members of the Mounted Rifles, the Maori Battalion, and other units to which our predecessors had belonged. We were reminded by those graves of the Empire cameraderie which the spirit of 1914-1918 engendered. On that same morning in a street near the city we found the 1940 counterpart- of that comradeship. As we walked wo fell in with a soldier from a Scottish regiment; a bearded Indian signalman joined us, and in a minute or two we representatives of three widely-flung parts of the Empire were walking by the side of an Egyptian policeman, mounted on his rangy, long-legged camel. There was Empire unity! The colourful history of ancientEgypt has been unfolded to many of us who have visited the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. The crowning glory of this storehouse of antiquity is the sec-' tion devoted to treasures taken from the tomb of King Tutankhamen. It houses gold almost by the acre, beaten and moulded into tilings of breathtaking beauty. All Cairo" is an ever-changing picture. There is something new at which to wonder or delight no matter where we turn. We can stroll through bright, noisy bazaars, or gaze at the most modern products of the world in the most modern shops. We can watch the leisurely river life on the Nile, whose slow and muddy waters carry an endless flow of high-master feluccas, picturesque native sailing craft. There will be some stories to tell some day at the fireside in many a New Zealand home.