t, a poor broken Reserve man, with a
wife and children across the seas. At last I went and, after no little
bother, discovered an R.A.M.C. Sergeant, who found his Sergeant-Major,
and the two came with me to our hut. The result was a mustard leaf,
which was sent down to me to place on the sufferer. With this on the
left side of his stomach, bugs biting, mosquitoes worrying, and comrades
lurching in, singing and rowing, and beds collapsing, the night passed.
The next day the doctor saw him, and he was returned to Wynberg.[11]

[Footnote 11: I met him again looking much better and in the
best of spirits on the _Aurania_, being invalided home.]

In the afternoon we paraded and came on here. In the evening I slipped
off to Cape Town and met a friend, with whom I dined at the "Grand."
Having a decent dinner and amongst decently dressed people made me feel
quite a Christian, though as a matter of fact, most of the diners
appeared to be Jews. The sheenie man refugee is still very much in
evidence, and though he sells things at ruinous prices (for himself, he
says) seems to do well.

Tuesday, March 6th. After being kept outside the doctor's bureau from 9
till 12.30, the great man, the controller of fates, the donor of
tickets, the Maitland medicine man, has seen me, and, whatever he has
done, has not marked me for home.

ANOTHER ALBUM!!

_March 9th._

To weary you with a further continuation of the experiences of a forlorn
Yeoman, who, having drifted from Pretoria, now finds himself on the
sands of Maitland, with a distant and tantalising view of the sea and
its ships, seems an unworthy thing to do. But, alas! I have acquired a
terrible habit of letter-writing. News or no news, given the
opportunity, I religiously once a week contribute to the English mail
bag; so here goes for a really short letter.

On Thursday, having endured as much toothache as I deemed expedient
without complaint, and goaded on by a sleepless night, I paraded before
the doctor, and having borne with him moderately and half satisfied his
credulity, obtained from him a note to a Cape Town dentist for the
following day. I am now in that being's hands, he has considerately
assured me that no man is a hero to his own dentist.

In Cape Town there are two topics--the town guard and the plague, known
as bubonic; owing to the latter, great is the stink of disinfectants.

I have already made allus