But of almost equal importance in the campaign was a rounded hill which projects sharply from the Anafarta ridge or plateau north of Ismail Oglu Tepe. Down the western front of this hill, which looks over the plain to the very centre of the Salt Lake, and to Suvla Bay beyond, runs a broad yellow “blaze” of bare ground, showing a marl and soft sandstone surface (the formation of this plateau being again of the same character as the Sari Bair range). This “blaze” appears from the sea to be shaped like a Gurkha’s “kukri” or an old-fashioned Turkish scimitar, and so the hill came to be called “Scimitar Hill.” But officially it was “Hill 70” from its height in metres (say 200 feet), and commonly the soldiers called it “Burnt Hill,” which was no distinction. It was connected, apparently without much break or dip, with the plateau behind it bearing the general name of Baka Baba, on which the windmills, the white minaret, and some of the houses of Little Anafarta could be distinctly seen from the beach. The minaret, however, was destroyed by the Turks on Sept. 6, as affording a sighting point for naval fire. This description covers the southern and south-east positions to be attacked in the Suvla district. [Sidenote: THE SALT LAKE AND BAY] From Nibrunesi Point the coast-line curves sharply into a semicircular bay, the diameter of which is close upon two miles. The north side of the Point itself falls, as described, in steep cliffs to a narrow and rocky beach. The cliff continues till the foot of Lala Baba is passed, and then it suddenly ends in low dunes of soft and drifting sand. These in turn sink into a spit or isthmus, about 700 yards long, and some 200 yards across at its broadest part. It is all of loose sand, very tiring to walk on, though bent grass and patches of heath bind it together here and there. The shallow bay lies on the left; the large expanse of the Salt Lake on the right. The Salt Lake measures about a mile and a half at its greatest length and breadth each way, forming a kind of square with irregular sides. Its surface in summer is thinly crusted with salt deposit upon caked and fissured mud, fairly sound for walking or riding, though in places the foot sinks above the ankle, and on the south side above the knees. Consequently, the south side, thickly covered with high reeds and ending in the marshy plain, is always impassable for troops, though a track not far from the edge can be used in summer for carts and even guns.