Most of these operations were for possession of the sandstone cliffs on the Turkish side of the wadi and the terrain was generally the beach itself, which from Belah to beyond Gaza was rocky and dangerous and in few places more than fifty yards wide. At the mouth of the wadi, which had to be crossed, there were shifting sands extremely difficult to negotiate especially at high tide. After some weeks of successful nibbling, which exasperated the Turks into a vast, useless expenditure of ammunition, the infantry firmly established themselves along the coast to a point just south of Gaza, beyond which it was not expedient to go. Here they proceeded to make homes for themselves by digging holes in the face of the cliffs and lining them with sand-bags. They became, in fact, cave-dwellers, though they certainly had army rations to eat in place of the raw bear of their troglodytic ancestors; and their caves were not dug here and there according to the indiscriminating taste of the diggers. They were cunningly conceived with a keen eye to defence as well as comfort. So elaborate was the system that it was universally known as the "Labyrinth," and no apter name could have been devised. Long months afterwards, when "the strife was o'er, the battle done," I rode along this stretch of beach where the cliffs for upwards of a mile were honeycombed with caves of different sizes, all of them made by the hand of man. There were neat steps cut in the sandstone leading from one to the other; narrow ledges along which you crawled, clinging like a fly to the face of the cliff; and outside some of the caves was a kind of sandstone chute which presumably served the same purpose as did the banisters of irresponsible boyhood's days. I cannot imagine what else the occupants could use them for, nor when they had reached the bottom, how they climbed the steep incline again, except on hands and knees. There were wells, too, sunk in various places about the Labyrinth and adequately protected with sand-bags. Rations were brought up by camels who made the stealthy and perilous journey across the mouth of the wadi nightly from Belah. Towards the centre the distance between the trenches was too great to allow of much "nibbling" and the activity here was confined mainly to a regular daily "strafe" on the part of the artillery, and listening-patrols, who occasionally came across a party of Turks similarly engaged, whereupon silent work with the bayonet ensued, until one or other party was wiped out.