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A plan was projected in 1855 by M. Linant Bey and M. Mougel Bey, under the superintendence of M. de Les-seps, who had already received a firman of concession from Said Pasha. This plan recommended a direct canal between Suez and Pelusium, which should pass through the Bitter Lakes, Lake Tinseh, Ballah, and Menzaleh, and connecting with the sea at each end by means of a lock.
We were not left long however to enjoy ourselves, and after about a fortnight at Cairo we again entrained for a station on the Suez Canal. Little did we then think it was the first move in our long trek into Palestine. We arrived at Ballah West on the 17th February and got our first impression of what our life in the desert was to be like.
The weather was very broken and not too warm, but moving about constantly in the sand was very tiring and depressing. We had had the experience of sand at Aboukir, but that was at the side of the sea where one is quite prepared for it, but at Ballah it seemed to be different. There was nothing but sand on every side except for the thin strip of water, the Suez Canal running north and south.
On March 2nd the Battalion took over posts from Ballah to Kantara; the work was not arduous, being mainly to see that no unauthorised persons visited the Canal to put mines therein. Everyone bathed and one officer caught a mullet on a white sea fly, but no more; he always felt sure if he were to fish at the right time he would get a good basket, but his dreams were never realised.
This was a trench revetted by sand bags, running some miles to the east of and running parallel to the Canal. Its tactical uses we never could understand. Days were spent trying to clean up Ballah East; had Hercules been with us he would have diverted the Canal through the Augean camp.
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