There was also a pack of 'fox hounds' at Aleppo and another at Tripoli. The 'Lebanon Hounds,' at the latter place, showed some quite good sport over the comparatively flat country near the coast, but the 'Aleppo Hunt' was handicapped by the rocky nature of the country, and by the fact that most of the 'earths' were holes in solid rock, out of which it was impossible to dig a fox that had got to ground. Moreover, as they met at five o'clock on Sunday mornings only, the fields were never very large!
The 13th Brigade, at Aintab, held a series of point-to-point meetings in the vale of the Kuwaik Su, and the regiment at Marash organised a pig-sticking club, which met once or twice near the Ak Su lakes. There was not much sport, as the pigs came from the hills, which were unridable, and to which they speedily retired, as soon as they were disturbed.
Expeditions to the ruins of the Hittite City of Carchemish, near Jerablus, to the summer palace of Haroun al Rashid at Rakka on the Euphrates, 150 miles east of Aleppo, to Palmyra, the city of Zenobia, in the desert eighty miles east of Homs, and to various other historical remains, added interest to life, and, at the same time, served to give officers and men a knowledge of the country that they could have obtained in no other way.
The Anzac and Australian Mounted Divisions left for Egypt in the spring of 1919, and on the 7th June the Desert Mounted Corps was broken up. The administration of the conquered territory was taken over by the newly-created 'Northforce,' which consisted of the 4th and 5th Cavalry Divisions and two divisions of Infantry, the whole under the command of Major-General Barrow. This force found garrisons for places up the coast as far as Smyrna, and also took over the administration of the Baghdad Railway from Constantinople to the railhead east of Nisibin in Mesopotamia.
In November of the same year the administration of northern Syria was finally handed over to our French Allies, and the last of the British and Indian Cavalry marched out of the country they had conquered and held for over a year.
Inscription cut on the rock cliffs of the Dog River, near Beirût, amongst those of Rameses II, Nebuchadnezar, Senacherib and other early conquerors of Syria.