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Six wooden panels from the tomb of Hesi in the Gizeh Museum represent perhaps the finest known specimens of this branch of art. Mariette ascribed them to the Third Dynasty, and he may perhaps have been right; though for my own part I incline to date them from the Fifth Dynasty. In these panels there is nothing that can be called a "subject."
The East Anglian Division went up west of Gaza and held from Sheikh Redwan to the sea by seven o'clock, two squadrons of the Corps' cavalry rode along the seashore and had patrols on the wadi Hesi a little earlier than that, and the Imperial Service Cavalry Brigade, composed of troops raised and maintained by patriotic Indian princes, passed through Gaza at nine o'clock and went out towards Beit Hanun.
This force reached the Wadi Hesi by evening, and succeeded in establishing itself on the north bank in the face of considerable opposition from a Turkish rearguard. Cavalry had already pushed on round the north of Gaza and become engaged at Beit Hanun with an enemy rearguard which maintained its position till night-fall." This brings our history down to the night of November 7th/8th.
And, as has been said, with Gaza secured we should still have had to face the enemy in a new line of positions about the wadi Hesi. Gaza was the Turks' strongest point.
It will be remembered that the Gaza operations had the effect of almost turning the enemy's right flank as long ago as November 2nd, and that, by the evening of the 7th, the force advancing along the coast had already established itself on the north bank of the Wadi Hesi, some 6 miles or so behind the enemy's defensive line.
They may have thought that if they could secure the wadi Hesi line before we got into position to threaten it in flank they would immobilise our Army till the rains began, and there was a possibility of sitting facing each other in wet uncomfortable trench quarters till the flowers showed themselves in the spring, by which time, the Bagdad venture of the German Higher Command proving hopeless before it was started, a great volume of reinforcements might be diverted to Southern Palestine with Turkish divisions from the Salonika front and a stiffening of German battalions spared from Europe in consequence of the Russian collapse.
"As soon as it was seen that the Turks had evacuated Gaza, on the morning of the 7th, a part of the force pushed along the coast to the mouth of the Wadi Hesi, some 8 miles north of Gaza, so as to turn the Wadi Hesi line and prevent the enemy making any stand there.
Poor girls! they had no more to give a grass titi round their shapely loins and a few silver or gold rings, and ear pendants, being all their worldly wealth and clothing combined. Our young friend was solemnly cautioned never to let Kapeni Hesi know about the turtle-shell and other gifts, or his anger would "eat them up."
Still the men marched admirably and by 17.00 the Battalion was at the Wadi Hesi, twelve miles north of Gaza, where the B.G.C. gave orders to secure the ridges on the other side of the wadi. It was an interesting situation. The Battalion had halted on the shore, on which it had been marching all day, half a mile or so south of the Wadi Hesi.
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