With Methuen's Column on an Ambulance Train

The Author's share of the profits arising from the sale of this book will be given to Lady Lansdowne's Fund for the Widows and Families of Officers.
FELLOW OF HERTFORD COLLEGE, OXFORD
When I returned from South Africa I had no intention of adding to the war literature which was certain to be evoked by the present campaign. But I now publish this simple narrative because it was suggested to me by a friend that the sale of such a book might perhaps serve to augment in some measure the Fund established by the patriotism and energy of Lady Lansdowne and her Committee. Lady Lansdowne has cordially approved of the suggestion; so I trust that the profits derived from this little volume may be enough to justify its existence.
ERNEST N. BENNETT.
The first view of Capetown from the sea is not easily forgotten. We sailed into the bay just as the sun was rising in splendour behind the cliffs of Table Mountain. The houses of the town which fill the space between the hills and the sea were still more or less in shadow, picked out here and there by twinkling lights. On the summit rested a fleecy cloud which concealed the pointed crags and hung from the edges of the precipice like a border of fine drapery. On the right, groups of buildings stretched onwards to Sea Point, where the surf was breaking on the rocks within a few feet of the road; on the left were the more picturesque suburbs of Rosebank, Newlands and Claremont nestling amid their woods and orchards; and still further on lay Wynberg, with its vast hospital, already become a household word in English homes. The dreary flats of Simon's Bay, where British war-ships lay at anchor, shut in the view.
Pleasing as the picture is when seen from the deck of a Castle Liner, disappointment generally overtakes the voyager who has landed. Capetown itself has little to boast of in the way of architecture. Except Adderley Street, which is adorned by the massive buildings of the Post Office and Standard Bank, the thoroughfares of the town offer scarcely any attractions. The Dutch are not an artistic race, and the fact that natives here live not in locations but anywhere they choose has covered some portions of the town's area with ugly and squalid houses. Nor, as a matter of fact, does the general tone of thought and feeling in Cape Colony naturally lend itself to aesthetic considerations. Even the churches fail to escape the influence of a spirit which subordinates everything else to practical and utilitarian considerations. Can two uglier buildings of their kind be found in the civilised world than the English and Dutch cathedrals at Capetown?