Jaffa, where the well-known Jaffa oranges are grown, is rather more like a European town than others in the country, but still is not to be compared in any respect with a British town of the same size.[13] A very good Y.M.C.A. was established there, in which was a picture-house which provided welcome amusement in the evening.  Daily bathing parades were instituted; the camp being barely a mile from the sea.  The usual procedure was to ride to the shore and “link” horses.  The men would then bathe and ride back.  Quite half the horses were taken in the sea with the men, and they seemed to enjoy the sea just as much, after the first experience.

[Illustration]

Reinforcements to the Squadron during May included Lieut.  F.R.  Wilgress
(Lovats Scouts), who was posted to “A” Sub-section (and became Officer
Commanding No. 1); Sergt.  Lewis ("E” Sub-section), Lance-Corpls.  Collett,
Fuller and S.S.  Fox.

FOOTNOTES: 

    [12] River Auja, the Mejarkon of Joshua xix, 46, one of the boundaries
    of the tribe of Dan.

[13] Jaffa, stated to be the scene of the Legend of Perseus and Andromeda, is the Joppa and Japho of Scripture, see Josh. xix, 46; II Chron. ii, 16; Ezra iii, 7; Jonah i, 3; Matt. xii, 40; Acts ix, 36, x, 9.  A house said to be that of Simon the Tanner can be seen in the town.  In A.D. 1799 when Napoleon invaded Palestine, he marched 10,000 men across the desert from Egypt, took El Arish and Gaza easily, but met with great resistance at Jaffa.  Finally, the town was taken, and then 4,000 prisoners were murdered in cold blood after life had been promised them.

INSECT LIFE IN PALESTINE.

[Illustration]

As has been said, the camp, when it was first taken over, was a particularly pleasant one, but, as the summer advanced, flies became so numerous as to affect the health of the Squadron; the trees and bushes which at first had been looked on as an advantage, now provided excellent breeding places for the pests.  South of Beersheba there are places where the ground is so thick with beetles that it is difficult to walk without treading on them at every step; at other places lizards are just as numerous, and they are as active as mice.  In most parts of Palestine centipedes abound; these, if knocked off the skin in any other but the direction in which they are moving, are liable to cause a very bad inflammation and perhaps blood poisoning.  Scorpions and tarantula spiders (which are just as poisonous); snakes which are deadly; sandflies, which cause a bad fever for several days; mosquitoes, which can inject malignant malarial germs capable of causing death in a few hours—­these are a few of the many tortures.  But of all these pests the common house fly, if in sufficient numbers, is a greater source of annoyance than any, besides being a spreader of disease.  There certainly must have been millions upon millions of these flies, even within (say) 20 square yards!