of a dark object moving along half hidden by the opposing
parapet. Some earth was being thrown up over the breastwork just there,
and probably the man had to step round the work which was going on. It
was the first and only time I have seen a German in his own lines.

The German here really snipes much more with his field gun than with his
rifle. He does use his rifle, too, and is a good shot, but slow. A spout
of dust on the parapet--and a periscope has been shattered in the
observer's hand within a few yards of us. But it is generally the German
field gun that does his real sniping for him, shooting at any small body
of men behind the lines. Half a dozen are quite enough to make a target,
if he sees them.

The Turks used to snipe us at times with their field guns and mountain
guns, but generally at certain fixed places--down near the mouth of the
Aghyl Dere, for example. The German snipes with them more generally.
There is no place that I have visited which can compare for perpetual
"unhealthiness" to Anzac Beach, but it is quite possible that such
places do exist.

The German gives you the impression of being a keener observer than the
Turk. The hills and trees behind his lines are really within view of you
over miles of your own country, though you scarcely realise it at first,
and they are full of eyes. Also every fine day brings out his balloons
like a crop of fat grubs--and also our own. In Gallipoli our ships had
the only balloons--the Turks had all the hill-tops.

The aeroplane here affords so big a part of the hourly spectacle of
warfare, and makes so great a difference in the obvious conditions of
the fight, that he deserves a letter to himself. But of all the
differences, by far the greatest is that our troops here have a
beautiful country and a civilised, enlightened population at the back of
them, which they are defending against the invading enemy whom they have
always hoped to meet. They are amongst a people like their own, living
in villages and cottages and paddocks not so different from those of
their own childhood. Right up into the very zone of the trenches there
are houses still inhabited by their owners. As we were entering a
communication trench a few days ago we noticed four or five British
soldiers walking across the open from a cottage. The officer with me
asked them what they were doing. "We've just been to the inn there,"
they said.

The people of that house were still living in it, wi