mazement I discovered that Percy
Davies--now Major Davies, son of Mr. David Davies, Mayor of
Swansea, 1917, and editor of the _South Wales Daily Post_--was in
the same village at the time. So I went along to his mess; we
were overjoyed to meet one another. He introduced me to his
messmates, a ripping set of chaps, who included Sir Alfred Mond's
son, and one Parry, whose brother played for Dulwich, inside to
Harold Gilligan, in Evans's year. Amazing coincidences, what? At
the invitation of these fellows I went with them to a concert
they had got up in the village. It was quite the best show of its
kind I have seen out here, and there are lots of concert-parties
in these parts. The Welsh have a gift of music that is peculiar
to them alone. There was some first-rate singing at the concert;
and a private soldier--a Tommy, mark you!--played Liszt's "No. 2
Rhapsody" and Schubert's "Marche Militaire" almost flawlessly.
And the way the audience appreciated it! Then we had some
first-rate comic work--really refined, not cheap and coarse--by a
man whom I am sure I've seen at Llandrindod. Altogether it was a
first-rate show--by miles the most interesting, intellectual,
refined and capable performance I've seen out here.

They have shows of various kinds every night of the week--boxing
contests, trials by jury, concerts, etc. What enterprise and
intelligence our countrymen have! Percy Davies himself looks
after the boxing, and he made quite a telling little speech in
announcing his plans for the coming week. Mond is a good chap,
very jovial, boyish and unsophisticated. In fact, all these
fellows are of the very best, and of outstanding intelligence.
Would that I were with them! I was struck by the remarkable
difference between these officers and the cavalry officers with
whom I am in daily association. Each type is wholly admirable in
its own way, but they have not many characteristics in common.

_April 14th, 1916._

I derive great pleasure and interest from watching the methods of
these French peasants with their horses. It is nothing short of
marvellous. They never groom their horses and never clean the
harness or bits, yet the horses keep fit as fiddles and look
really well too. Their intelligence is extrao