_Captain W. H. Eve--December 19._--“These Arabs and Turkish Cavalry are wretched brutes to fight. They won’t let you get near them. Then directly you start home away from them they attack and worry.... It always seems to be the way. Luckily as a rule they are apparently pretty bad shots. I am rather hopeless of ever being able to get at them mounted, but I shall try, and we may get the Infantry out of their trenches one day. But there’s nothing to worry about, we are right on top of them. The job is to get near them.” _Lieutenant Munster--December 19._--“We left our camp a week ago and have been skirmishing about ever since. So far we have had only very slight casualties, and it does not appear to me as though we Cavalry should become heavily engaged. Up to now we have been occupied in keeping the Arabs from interfering with operations against the Turks. We are quite comfortable, and on full rations. There seems to be no difficulty about supplies. The weather has not broken yet. Our horses are having a hard time just now.” [Illustration: THE HUSSARS OF THE THIRTEENTH NARVA REGIMENT OF RUSSIA SEND MOST FRATERNAL GREETINGS TO THEIR VALIANT AND NOBLE COMRADES OF THE THIRTEENTH REGIMENT OF HUSSARS PROUD AND HAPPY IN BEING UNITED WITH THEM IN CORDIAL COOPERATION AGAINST A COMMON ENEMY. THE RUSSIAN FRONT 1916. XMAS CARD SENT TO THE REGIMENT, 1916] Private Massey writes in his diary regarding these casualties: “As the bullets which the Arabs use are as big as a man’s little finger, with flattened nose just rounded off, they make a big noise going through the air, as well as making terrible wounds.” The horses suffered most. _Lieutenant Chrystall._--“We have been doing, as you will no doubt have seen by the papers, a little fighting, and have been doing a lot of night marching on ‘operation scale,’ which means waterproof sheet, one blanket, and biscuits and bully, and out all day. Our horses at times have been forty-four hours without water, which of course is very hard. Well, we were bemoaning our fate when we were ordered out on Christmas Eve morning for an all-night show, and thinking we will never have any Christmas dinner at all. We returned to camp about 3 P.M. on Christmas Day and found a much-belated Christmas parcel awaiting us, and all your splendid parcels. We had a meal fit for a king, and we had to thank all you good people for it.” _Captain W. H. Eve--December 27._--“Personally I see no show ever for us, and am sorry I ever joined the Cavalry.... I have no delusions about it now.... I shall never get a gallop with my squadron....”