Naturally as time goes on local news gets less interesting and a more personal letter would mean so much more. The real feelings and reactions at home to things happening are what we want to know from our people. We don't want to feel that we have lost the real touch with NZ. It is the thoughts which matter. Letter writing over such a long period becomes very inadequate doesn't it? There is so much that a spoken word or just a look could tell that is hard to place on paper.

We are now allowed to say about the ceremonial parades which we had through Aleppo, Homs and Hama but beyond stating the fact there is little to say. Aleppo has been and still is a particularly important town to the Arab world. Did I describe the quaint villages on the higher levels? The huts have high peaked dome roofs and square bases. They are built of mud over a framework of wooden struts. The strange roofs are for shedding the snow. When we first saw a couple page 45of acres covered by these queer dwellings we wondered what we had struck. Another little thing that at first glimpse had us wondering was rings and rings of what were apparently mud pies outside many of the dwellings. These turned out to be not made of mud but animal manure mainly and were in hand made cakes drying in the sun for use as fuel. Wood is remarkably scarce in most areas in Syria.

Leave is now available to Beirut of two days at a time. I may take advantage of this but I am still hoping for leave to Palestine and should really save my money for making the most use of my time there. Tell your Dad that I have often been going to write to him but by the time the censor had played around there would be little left of a letter to him.

There can be little similarity between 1st NZEF and ours now that the majority of the last war officers have gone home or beyond. Cappy Brown's loss and chaps like him are very much regretted. I'm rather bored with life in general at present. The news of a fresh offensive will make things more interesting. We'd like to see the job getting done and are hoping to see big happenings in Europe soon. Our part may be very small but coming events will soon show which way Hitler will turn.

Cradled in a bowl of dry hills in northern Syria, the city of Aleppo presents an austere facade to those entering her ancient gates. Serious, tightlipped, sober - the adjectives often applied to her people convey a dignity befitting Aleppo's age, for she vies with Damascus and Sana'a as the oldest existing city in the world. Though eclipsed by the political and economic hegemony of modern Damascus, Aleppo preserves more purely the essence of a traditional Arab city. She is the northernmost of Syria's great inland towns, including Damascus, Homs and Hamah.