A Soldier’s Letter .

Waikato Independent, Volume XVIII, Issue 1742, 20 April 1916, Page 5

A Soldier’s Letter .

The following are extracts from a (Jambridge boy’s letter to his parents: I saw a good part of Egyj.it ar 1 one tiling 1 will say for the land hero, or rather desert, and that is, wherever it is possible to irrigate, it A'ill grow : nytliing a( all, and all very heavy crops, too. You should just see the methods adopted by the niggers for irrigating the higher lands, where canals arc not possible. No such things as pumps arc used, that would be far too up-to-date. One place I saw two niggers with an oarthernw are disli Avhich had' two long ropes attached to each side of it. One stood on either side of a ditch running from the main canal. They would Avalk up to the edge of the drain, and, of course, the dish avouUl dr jo into the water there; still keeping hiM of the end of the ropes, they avouUl walk back until the dish came up and then eairv it along to the highest drain. They were irrigating about two acres in this Avay. and no doubt thought themsolves very industrious, 1 have been along the greater part of the Canal iioav, and hojie to see the other part in the near future.

One tiling 1 am looking forward to is tho. date season, as I am anxious to sample tlie dates in their natural stale. I have .sampled almost everything else except nigger cooking, which T hope I will not have to sample, as some cf our hoys have done. I have even tried Indian cooking, which is a novelty, hut very clean, though the flavour is something one needs to get used to. The Indians are more than pleased to get a chance of offering a white man some of their food, and would go hungry themselves before they would see a white man hungry. The Bikhs are fine fellows and in fact all of them are, and they all have a lot of time for New Zealanders. T travelled in the train the other day with an Indian doctor who had been through all' the fighting in Prance, having been ih the trenches most of the time. He spoke English well, and was one of the most interesting fellows I have met. He was well educated, havingtaken his degree, and knew more of English polities than I ever did. His accounts of the lighting were splendid, and accurate, as you can depend on anything they tell you. He had also been in the Dardanelles for a while, so' had seen more of war than the majority. The Ghurkas are little fellows, but very sturdy, and can use their knives well ‘as you have heard. I am going to get one of their knives and send home, as I know father would like it, though they are ngly-looking weapons. The Ghurkas are always willing to show them, but the Sikhs will not do so unless he cuts himself first with it just enough to draw blood, as that is part of their creed, never to draw it unless he draws blood. This, of course, only applies to war time. It is wonderful to watch these fellows’ handling mules. They can get anything at all out of them, ami got them to pull more than anybody else.

The Bengal Lancers are all great big fellows, and very reserved, though I have always found them willing enough to talk once they were started, though they will not talk about what they do themselves I should like to tell you a bit more about them only you know—censor—so be content with what I have told yon. That is the bad point about censors, anything interesting they spoil, and I don’t want my letters made worse than they are. as it requires a lot of energy to even write this much.