as to sweep and flatten a
track in the sand, so broad that an agile Turk could not be expected to
jump over it. In the morning this track was carefully scrutinised, and
it was possible to see whether anybody besides the ants and beetles, who
had a right of way, had gone across it during the night, and if so steps
would be taken, as required.

But General Murray with troops at his disposal did not propose to allow
this state of affairs to continue. The routes by which a hostile force
could advance on Egypt from the east were limited, and the southern
ones, through very difficult mountainous country, were unlikely if not
impossible, especially when raiders or aeroplanes had destroyed the
stores of water in the rock cisterns. The northern route lay close along
the sea coast, through a desert of heavy sand, in which at many places
water, which most horses refused, but which seemed good enough for a
Turk, could be obtained by digging wells. This route bent south-westward
from Romani and reached the Canal at Kantara, and it was this route that
he determined to block by advancing eastward along it himself.

The Kantara of the spring of 1916 was very different to the great town
of camps and metalled roads, lines of sheds and pyramids of stores,
canteens, and Y.M.C.A.s, lorry parks and hospitals, real nurses and a
cinema, which became familiar to hundreds of thousands of troops on
their way up to Palestine in 1917-1918. Even the cemetery was only wired
off during our occupation, and one remembers being somewhat ribald at
the pessimism of the authorities who provided sufficient consecrated
ground to contain the bodies of all the troops then garrisoning the
place. As usual the authorities scored in the long run.

Its pre-war amenities were distinctly limited. On the west side of the
Canal ran the line from Ismalia to Port Said, with a station and some
square plastered houses occupied by native officials of the E.S.R. and
Canal services. The Sweet-Water Canal, an insignificant ditch full of
dirty water, divided the line from the big Canal, and the low trees,
which grew along its banks, gave the only pleasing view in a desolate
land. The euphemistically named "sweet water" contained a large number
of Bilharzia parasite, an interesting little creature, whose ancestors
have been found embedded in the Egyptian mummies. It begins its life in
a water snail, transfers itself through the mouth and skin to the body
of any human being it c