In Palestine the troops looked in vain for the Promised Land “flowing with milk and honey.” The Plain of Philistia was fertile, but apart from the few Jewish and German colonies, and the orange groves about Jaffa, it was, with all its natural possibilities, a land bare and neglected, a reproachful ghost of a great life that is gone. But Damascus was a prize worth the winning. Here, after nearly three years of desert and exhausted, unfruitful regions, was an area good to look upon, and teeming with an active people. Few of us were sorry that we had at last outrun our supplies, or rather, that the huge capture of prisoners had somewhat strained the wonderful commissariat which had so gallantly kept at the heels of the galloping cavalry, and that a brief halt was necessary for the Australian Mounted Division. For a month some of the Regiments were in camps in the gardens around the city, and man and horse never accepted rest more gratefully. After thirteen days on bully and biscuit, it was good to know fresh meat and bread again; the mutton was of the best, and the bread, if dark and coarse and heavy, was still a long way ahead of biscuit. We were too late for the famous Damascus apricots, but there were grapes for the multitude, and pears and apples and pomegranates, and, also, raisins and other dried fruits and specialties in Eastern sweetmeats. Best of all, every camp was within sight and sound of many running waters. Noisy little streams crossed our path a hundred times a day. Follow one along, and it suddenly disappeared into an underground passage, to burst forth like a spring a hundred yards away. In the streets, many of the gutters are river-fed waterways, and, to reduce the dust, the tired civic authorities block the drains and cause an effective little flood, which is extended by boys splashing with their hands. You buy grapes at the stalls, and carry them a few yards to dip into the waters of a mountain stream. But Damascus is dirty and insanitary. Without the purge of the Abana waters, flushing through it and under it, the city would die of its filth in a single summer. And even with its beautiful streams it proved a false friend to great numbers of Australians. The Australian Mounted division suffered more sickness in the Damascus area than anywhere else in the campaign. THE ANZACS’ PART In most of the operations which cleared Sinai and Palestine of the Turk, the lead was entrusted to the veterans of the Anzac Mounted Division. In this last and greatest campaign of all, the Division found itself away from the spectacular side of the enterprise. A trusty mounted Division was needed for the subsidiary, but highly important, work on Moab and Gilead, east of Jordan, and the choice fell upon the Anzacs.