24 August 1915 - Letter from Egypt

Dear Myrtle,
Arrived at our destination safely & am feeling well. We are situated about 6 miles from Cairo at Heliopolis Camp. Heliopolis is a very fine town where the higher class people live, some of the buildings are beautiful in fact everything is up to date electric trams run into Cairo every few minutes. Cairo is a very large city with a population of ¾ of a million people; in parks it is very nice but you have not to go very far before you come to the slums & real slums at that. We have been all over the place since we came; we went to the pyramids last Sunday & spent a real real interesting time. The pyramids are marvellous structures all built by hand some of the huge blocks of stone being over 5 tons in weight of course we had to have a camel ride & although it was rather rough we enjoyed the novelty. Our next trip was to the Mosque; we had a guide to take us over this & he explained everything it was well worth seeing & is very beautiful inside, the large dome being 250ft high. The dark race are very funny here the place is full of hawkers & there is no way of getting rid of them except by using expressive language. There are hundreds of kiddies anything from about 6 to 20, boot cleaners, awful pests. As soon as you get off the tram about a dozen or more are after you fighting to see who will clean your boots. If ever I come back I will be able to keep you going for a week telling you all I have seen. We expect to get away from here very shortly. I will write again soon dearest so goodbye for present. Fond Love. Yours lovingly Ozzie.
Kind regards to your mother & sister.

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