Christmas Day on the edge of the desert, within sight of the Pyramids of Gizeh! The very last place in which I ever thought I should celebrate the festive season. And the outlook was far from "Christmassy": A big wide stretch of yellow sand; a rough, trampled track styled a road; a straggling collection of low, flat-roofed, mud-built native houses that looked as if they had been chucked from aloft and stuck where they happened to pitch; a few vines, date palms, and fig-trees, disputing the right to live in company with some sun-baked nectarines and loquats; a foreground made up of tents, both military and native, wooden shanties, and picketed horses; a background of camp stores, mechanics' shops, and corded firewood, closed in by a line of dusty poplars; in the distance the desert, a vast study in monochrome, the horizon line broken in places by an Arab village and cemetery, a camel train, and the forbidding walls of some Egyptian grandee's harem; overhead a scorching sun shining in a cloudless sky; underfoot the burning sand—and everywhere the subtle aroma (or "sense," if you will) of the East, at once repellent and yet attractive, calling with ever-increasing insistence to some nomadic strain that has hitherto lain dormant in our beings—calling with the call of the East.... There was general leave, of course. Most of the chaps took the Cairo trail, those who remained doing so in nearly every case not from choice, but dire necessity: a week's pay at the rate of 2_s._ per day (once on active service we had to allot 3_s._) doesn't see one far in Egypt. Our crowd elected to stay for dinner, and I must say the cooks turned out an A1 meal. The turkey was missing, ditto the goose, but we had as much frozen mutton, followed by Christmas duff, as we could find room for. The wet canteen lay close handy, so the beer (English, too) wasn't missing. The desert didn't look so dusty when we left the tables. They are keen on the dollars, are the Egyptians. They swarmed round our camp like a mob of steers round a water-hole in a dry spell; everywhere you ran across their matchboard stores where you could buy 'most anything, from a notebook to a glass of ice cream, made from camel's milk! They had the time of their lives, especially the orange-sellers. I have bought seven jolly good oranges for a half-piastre (1-1/4_d._) more than once, but as a rule the price ranged from eight to twelve for a piastre (2-1/2_d._) Barrows or baskets aren't in favour with the Gippy fruit-sellers. They wear loose shirts and wide skirts, and by making full use of these garments one man will carry nearly a sackful of oranges—and at the same time help complete the ripening process. It paid to wipe the fruit before eating it.