Nile to Aleppo. By Hector W. Dinning. Illustrated by James
McBey. (G. Allen and Unwin. 25s. net.)—Captain Dinning served with the Australian Light Horse and pays just tribute to their brilliant achievements in Palestine and Syria. He dwells on the painful monotony of service in the Near East, where there was nothing for the men to do in the long intervals when the cavalry were idle, while the country seemed to be mostly sand or bare rock. Trench life in France was, he thinks, harder to endure than the weary waiting in Palestine. This is a question of temperament. Captain Dinning had to follow with the trans- port in the wake of the great cavalry advance of September, 1918, and he describes the Turkish rout very clearly, as well as the destruction of the retreating Turks in a defile near Nablus by aeroplanes. Later, he went by motor-car to Damascus, Baalbek, Horns, Hama and Aleppo, to the famous Muslimie junction. The difficulties of transport at this stage were very great, although the fighting had ceased. He comments most unfavourably on the Hedjaz forces, whom the Australians did not like. He devotes a few lively chapters to Cairo, and gives
a pleasant description of a private house in Aleppo, where he was entertained :—
" Rugs upon the wall ; rugs on the floor ; a couple of mother o' pearl tables and a low stand with beaten tray containing a vase and an ash-tray ; a few chairs of amorphous build—this is all the furniture a Syrian room needs to please. The Englishman who buys brass and rugs in the Mousky will be hard put to it to bring them into harmony with the rest of his English furniture when he gets home."
The book, itself finely printed, is illustrated with some of Mr. McBey's clever drawings and etchings ; several of the drawings, such as " Hodgson's Horse at Aleppo," are excellently reproduced in colour.
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