THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



327 



Photograph from C. W. Whitehair 



AN AUTOMOBILE HIGHWAY IN THE HOLY LAND 



The going is seldom smooth for a motor car in Palestine, and the rainy season offered 

 additional obstacles to the British in their advance upon Jerusalem. But the mud and the 

 mountain torrents were far preferable to the suffocating dust and almost unendurable desert 

 heat of the dry season, when the Jordan Valley advance was made. 



During the summer of 1916 I visited 

 every part of the Sinai front, and in no 

 part of the war zone have I seen men 

 undergo greater privations and hardships. 

 Every gallon of water had to be carried 

 forward in great tin boxes, called "fan- 

 tasses" ; and in time the British mustered 

 the greatest camel transport the world 

 has ever seen, running into the tens of 

 thousands of burden beasts. 



It was no easy matter to move forward 

 the guns and keep up the lines of com- 

 munication, for the wheels of the motor- 

 cars and artillery sank deep into the soft 

 sand. One enterprising young officer 

 discovered that by laying chicken wire on 

 the sand, motor-cars and guns could be 

 moved forward. 



the: great battle with desert thirst 



On the desert, many weary months 

 went by. The army had not only to fight 



the Turk, but the heat, dust, flies, and 

 thirst as well. And the worst hardship 

 of all was the unquenchable thirst. Only 

 those who have gone into the desert really 

 know this awful, unbearable, ever-grip- 

 ping, burning thirst. 



The desert thirst has no equal. The 

 sizzling hot sun on the sand, the glaring 

 light, and the burning heat get into the 

 blood, and the victim begins to want 

 water. If he is fortunate enough to have 

 the water, he drinks, but his thirst re- 

 mains unsatisfied; and then, after he 

 drinks, he begins to perspire and his 

 throat becomes dry and parched and his 

 body becomes a roaring furnace, while 

 his clothes are soaked with perspiration. 

 He can literally drink gallons. But the 

 lads who went over the scorching sands 

 of Sinai had only one gallon of water a 

 day per man — one gallon for cooking, 

 washing, and drinking. 



