MAJOR-GEN. CHAYTOR RECEIVES A DEPUTATION OF ARAB CHIEFS NEAR AMMAN
JERUSALEM
The Australians rode hard, scattering the excited people from their track. The firing increased, but its character had changed. The shots were now coming from native Arabs, who were expressing their feelings, in the popular Arab way, by blazing at the heavens. Across the river ahead, in front of the large new Town Hall, a huge crowd was assembled, and clattering over a bridge, the cavalry pulled up at the steps of the building. Instantly, there were hundreds of eager horse-holders, and an intense demonstration of goodwill. The East was greeting the victors of the day. Three officers, all carrying their revolvers, entered the building, and demanded the civil governor. They were at once taken upstairs to that personage, a trim, little middle-aged Turk, who greeted them with complete calm and much dignity, and begged to know their wishes. He was told that a great British force of cavalry was entering the town, and that he would be held responsible for good order and the protection of property; the shooting in the streets must instantly cease. The Governor replied that there was nothing to fear from the civil population, that the shooting was merely the expression of an excess of feeling, and that the British wishes would be respected in every way. He then begged the Australian officers to accept his hospitality.
A reliable guide was obtained and the party hurried forward. As the Australians continued their ride through the city they received the honours traditionally lavished on conquerors. The stalls were emptied of their incomparable grapes and pomegranates, which were handed up to the passing horsemen. Crowds hung to their stirrups and ran along with their hands on the bridle reins. They were smothered with perfumes. Every man who smoked enjoyed a gift cigar. Dark-eyed women and pretty girls appeared in every window, some of them the wives, doubtless, of Turkish soldiers, timidly, and showing no pleasure; others boldly waved their hands, smiled their welcome, and threw down scents and other favours.
VETERANS
It was a wonderful hour for our young Australian countrymen. But the long war had made them into reserved men of the world, and the streets of old Damascus were but a stage in the long path of the war. They rode, very dusty and unshaved, their big hats battered and drooping, through the tumultuous populace of the oldest city in the world, with the same easy, casual bearing, and the same quiet self-confidence that are their distinctive characteristic on their country tracks at home. They ate their grapes and smoked their cigars, and missed no pretty eyes at the windows; but they displayed no excitement or elation. They had become true soldiers of fortune. And their long-tailed horses, at home now, like their owners, on any road in any country, saw nothing in the shouting mob or banging rifles, or the narrow ways and many colours of the bazaars, to cause them once to start, shy, or even cock an ear. The 3rd Brigade rode out to a series of ugly, but highly successful, actions with stout rear-guards of German machine gunners. Few men, in any age, have passed through twenty-four more adventurous and gratifying hours than they during this first day around Damascus.