TCD MS 10515 folio 32v
[April 4th 1916] now under construction by the battalion. The route lay across the open desert and passed close to an Arab encampment pitched on the sandy soil. Their camp was in harmony with the bleak wilderness. Most of the habitiations were constructed of woven matting made made from the reeds that grow in the marshes. These were spread over an internal framework, the whole forming a strong, roomy hut, but as dull and uninviting as the desert. These dwellings must possess some degree of permanency; not so were the numbers of black, ragged, quadrangular tents that stood round about them, many in tatters, leaky and delapidated; some so miserable as to consist of no more than a number of sand bags sewn together and held down by fragments of rope. I suppose the inhabitants