t, and through which on account of its wells,
travellers for countless ages had passed on their leisurely journey south.
Nowadays, it is but a collection of exaggerated mud-huts of the usual
native type, with the addition of a few modern works and the railway.

Though I saw it frequently enough later on the sight of a railway-station
in or near a native village always seemed strangely incongruous. Do not for
a moment imagine that by railway-station I mean anything so elaborate as
the merest village station at home; except at Kantara even the best and
largest of ours did not rise to such heights. The platform, if there was
one, was of sleepers piled almost haphazard one upon another with sand
shovelled into the interstices and spread over the top. Occasionally
cinders were used to form an extra hard surface; but this was a luxury.
Unless a stationary train marked its presence the station was very
difficult to find at all, for one bit of the railway looks very much like
another at a distance. I remember a party of us trying for a long time to
find one of these elusive places. We found the railway all right but the
only sign of human habitation was a tiny wooden hut, almost invisible
against the background of sand, towards which we made our way. A
lance-corporal in the R.E. was the sole inmate. "Where's the station,
chum?" he was asked. He looked at us suspiciously for a moment.

"Don't come it over me," he said then; "yer standin' on it." And he was
right; you could even see the platform if you peered about carefully.

At Beersheba the Turkish station was rather a pretentious affair, all
things considered. There were quite a number of adequate buildings, most of
them connected with the water-works just outside. The Turks, thanks in the
first place to the fine shooting of our artillery, had had no chance of
getting their rolling-stock away; and secondly, the spirited dash of the
Australians had overwhelmed them before they could destroy any of it. In
fact there was a train in the station, fully laden with stores and ready to
start for Sheria had it been possible, when the Light Horse burst into the
town.

Beersheba that night presented an indescribable spectacle. It is literally
impossible to describe it, for every detail was obscured by the immense
clouds of dust that hung over the place like a pall, clinging and opaque.
The water-works and wells were fortunately intact, but until everything had
been carefully tested an