I am enjoying the desert immensely.

TCD MS 112903 folio 1 recto

TCD MS 112903 folio 1 recto

[?1916] Saturday
Dear Mother. I am enjoying the desert immensely. Up to date we have a fair amount of work mostly sandbagging & wiring so I havent yet had time to properly inspect the desert.
It is full of fossils mostly bits of trees from great big trunks down but I also saw a few shells and things [on] the only walk I have had yet.
We are pretty high up here 600 or 700 ft I should think and though 30 miles from the sea still get a sea breeze so it never gets really very hot and I dont think I ever was in a healthier place just the spot for Price’s brother.
About ½ a mile away there is an escarpment which stretches for miles. About a hundred or so feet below is a vast plain of sand & in the distance a big green patch which is a lake with high reeds all round.
Here lives the wily duck, gazelle & I’m sure other delectable game possibly fish & probably snipe.
The natives live there in the Spring grazing cattle & making mats out of reeds