At Suvla Bay; being the notes and sketches of scenes, characters and adventures of the Dardanelles campaign, made by John Hargrave ("White Fox") while serving with the 32nd field ambulance, X division, Mediterranean expeditionary force, during the great w by John Hargrave
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page 39 of 136 (28%)
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Here were veiled women and old men squatting under their open bazaar
fronts, with coloured mats and blinds strung across the narrow streets. Fruit sellers surrounded by melons, and beans, tomatoes and figs and dates--a jumble of colour, orange, scarlet, green, and gold. Pitchers and jars and woven carpets; queer Eastern scents; shuttered windows and flat roofs, mules and here and there a loaded camel, two Jews in black robes, a band of wild- looking desert wanderers in white with hoods and veils. Egyptian women carrying little brown babies; who would believe there could be such figures, such colour and picturesque compositions? It was a short march, but we saw much. So this was the land of Egypt. It was good. What a pity we could see so little of it . . . There were very smartly dressed French women with faces powdered and painted and scented. Old men with hollow eyes and yellow parchment skins all creased and wrinkled squatted on the cobble-stones, smoking hubble-bubbles and long ivory-stemmed pipes. Arab boys selling oranges ran about the streets. The heat was stifling--the shadows purple-black, the sunlight glared golden-white on the buildings and towers and minarets. Here were curio-shops with queer oriental carvings and alabaster figures. It was like a chapter of my _Thousand-and-One Nights_ come true, and I |
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