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Meanwhile the enemy had despatched a relieving force from Shellal, which is about twenty miles to the south-east of Rafa and mid-way between that town and the nearest Turkish railway. This relieving force was detected by our aircraft, who frequently attacked it with bombs and machine gun fire.
A few buildings, however, attain to the dignity of two storeys. At the northern end of the town a group of fairly well-built houses occupy the river-front, and a distant view of the clusters of palm-trees, of the white walls, and the minaret of the mosque refreshes the weary traveller from Korosko or Shellal with the hopes of civilised entertainment.
At Rafa there was a big store of ammunition, and at Shellal large quantities not only of supplies but of railway material were piled up in readiness for pushing out railhead immediately the advance began.
The way in which we went was so impressive that it was comparatively easy to be keyed up to anything. Most travellers make the trip on donkey back; or else, as far as Shellal, in a white, blue-eyed desert train, where violet window-glass soothes their eyes and prepares their minds for a future journey to Khartum.
But away there across the bend of the river, dominating the ugly rummage of this intrusive beehive of human bees, sheer grace overcoming strength both of nature and human nature, rose the fabled "Pharaoh's Bed"; gracious, tender, from Shellal most delicately perfect, and glowing with pale gold against the grim background of the hills on the western shore.
There was little fear that the Turks would attack us across this wide range of No Man's Land, for we held secure control of the curiously shaped heaps of broken earth about Shellal, and the conical hill at Fara gave an uninterrupted view for several miles northward and eastward. The position was very different about Beersheba.
Again I turned toward "Pharaoh's Bed," toward the temple standing apart from it, which already I had seen from the desert, near Shellal, gleaming with its gracious sand-yellow, lifting its series of straight lines of masonry above the river and the rocks, looking, from a distance, very simple, with a simplicity like that of clear water, but as enticing as the light on the first real day of spring.
The relieving force were driven off without much difficulty, and withdrew, presumably, to Shellal, which thereafter became the enemy's next point of concentration. Our column, taking with them all prisoners, animals and captured material, withdrew again to El Arish. From the time of our occupation of El Arish on the 22nd December, that town developed apace.
When I began cleaning it most tenderly he scraped it out with a stick, and his friends dipped stones in the warm water and soundly scrubbed the surrounding inflamed parts. My husband prescribed a washing all over with hot water and stones. He was afterwards quite a different colour. Our second expedition was to Shellal.
John Aird & Co. for the construction of the great reservoir and dam at Shellâl, which serves for the storage of water at the time of the flood Nile. The river is 'held up' here sixty-five feet above its old normal level.
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