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Songs From The Desert.

Many a soldier wears beneath his tunic the colored mantle of Poetry, and sometimes he doffs the khaki and makes songs. "A Light horseman," who has gathered his verses into a book entitled "Songs from the Desert," has sung in grave moods and gay, and in both he is pleasing. His subjects range from the Nile to love. Here is a sample of "A Service Ditty". The Infantryman, plodding along in the sand, watches" a Light horseman riding, with mind at ease, and smoking blissfully, and describes his own feelings:—

The Devil is havin' a bet on the mob,
The mob that's marchin' along,
He's stiff on the favourite, (who's leadin' in front,)
And the odds is against me strong.

And we breathes so dry that, strike me fat,
It would wither a bloomin' cactus;
But I says to meself, with a mouthful of sand,
What the 'ell would they do if they lacked us?
The horse is all right to round a flank
Or catch a rearguard nappin';
But hold your breath, me bonny boys,
When the infantry goes a scrappin'!

The volume is published by Messrs Whitehead, Morris & Co. (Egypt) Ltd., Cairo, and its price is P.T. 10 net. It is a book to read here, and then send home to your friends.