ships. These have to lie outside the bar, and a smooth sea being the
exception on this part of the coast, disembarking is in consequence
almost always effected in a sort of basket cage, worked by a crane, and
holding three or four people. When I got on deck, the prisoners were
still on the tender, being mercilessly rolled about, and they must
indeed have been glad when, at six o'clock, the signal to disembark was
given.

I shall never forget that striking and melancholy scene. The dull grey
morning, of which the dawn had scarcely broken; the huge rollers of the
leaden sea, which were lifting our mighty ship as if she had been but a
cockleshell; and the tiny steamer, at a safe distance, her deck crowded
with sunburnt men, many of whose faces were familiar to us, and who were
picturesquely attired, for the most part, in the very same clothes they
had worn on their ill-fated march--flannel shirts, khaki breeches, high
boots, and the large felt hats of the Bechuanaland Border Police, which
they were wearing probably for the last time. As soon as they came on
board we were able to have a few hasty words with those we knew, and
their faces seem to pass in front of me as I write: Sir John Willoughby
and Captain C. Villiers, both in the Royal Horse Guards, apparently
nonchalant and without a care in the world; Colonel Harry White--alas!
dead--and his brother Bobby, who were as fit as possible and as cheery
as ever, but inclined to be mutinous with their unwilling gaolers; Major
Stracey,[6] Scots Guards, with his genial and courtly manners,
apparently still dazed at finding himself a prisoner and amongst rebels;
Mr. Cyril Foley, one of the few civilians, and Mr. Harold Grenfell,[7]
1st Life Guards, like boys who expect a good scolding when they get
home; and last, but not least, Dr. Jameson, to whom we were introduced.
"What will they do with us?" was the universal question, and on this
point we could give them no information; but it can be imagined they
were enchanted to see some friendly faces after a fortnight's
incarceration in a Boer prison, during the first part of which time they
daily expected to be led out and shot. I remember asking Dr. Jameson
what I think must have been a very embarrassing question, although he
did not seem to resent it. It was whether an express messenger from
Johannesburg, telling him not to start, as the town was not unanimous
and the movement not ripe, had reached him the day before he left
Maf