Easter Monday was a most trying day. The khamseen blew, the breakfast dishes were full of grit, horses were fidgety in the driving sandstorm, everyone's temper was on edge. Egypt is a delightful place for the tourist, who can amuse himself indoors if the conditions be undesirable without. The soldier, on the contrary, must soldier on, khamseen or no khamseen, so over the drifting wastes of sand, artillery, engineers, infantry, divisional train and ambulance, wended their several ways to their different rendezvous in the desert. This was a new idea in the matter of parades--parading by ships--all to go on the "Lutzow" mustering in one place, those for the "Katuna" in another, and so on. Men, horses and vehicles were carefully checked by the known capacity of the transports already waiting in Alexandria Harbour. Because the country was known to be mountainous and almost devoid of water it was recognized that in the initial stages of the campaign the mounted men must be left behind. This reduced the fighting strength of our division from four brigades to two. The mounted rifles for once were sorry they had horses, but hardly envied the infantrymen the daily long-distance route marches with the seventy pounds of pack and a rifle, dusty tracks, and an angry sun. Everything comes to an end, even training in Egypt. In the week following Easter, all ranks were thankful to get aboard the troop trains in the dark and disappear into the black Egyptian night. The only regret was that their comrades of the New Zealand Mounted Rifles and Australian Light Horse were left fretting in the desert camps. CHAPTER V. The Rendezvous at Mudros. Alexandria Harbour was alive with shipping--British, French, Greek, Italian and many captured vessels. Some of the latter--the "Lutzow," the "Annaberg," the "Haidar Pasha," and the "Goslar"--were requisitioned to make up the fleet of thirteen ships necessary to carry our Division. They ranged from liners like the "Lutzow," down to dirty, lice-infested tramps like the "Goslar," and had mostly lain in Alexandria Harbour for about eight months, tended only by a few Greeks, who, scrupulously observing the regulations, had thrown nothing overboard, but dumped the galley ashes and refuse on the once immaculate decks. The carpenters were still in possession of some of them, improvising horse boxes and fitting the tramps to carry more passengers than they had previously been accustomed to. As the journey took only about three days, a little congestion was not of great moment. [Illustration: ON THE QUAY AT ALEXANDRIA Vehicles, Stores, and a mountain of Hay for the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force.]