A hint as to food before we part. Don't go on the principle "because I am campaigning I must resign myself to feed badly on what I can pick up and on what my stomach is entirely unaccustomed to." There was never a greater mistake. On the contrary, feed yourself and those under you on the best, sparing no expense, and when you can get wine instead of muddy water, drink it to keep you going and your blood in good order. Do yourself as well as you can, is my advice and experience, after perhaps rather thinking and going the other way at first. It simply means that when others run down and go sick with dysentery, fever and other ills, you are still going strong and fit for work. Naturally advice on this point is entirely dependent on means of transport; but when this exists, as it did with the Naval Brigade who had ammunition wagons, a hundred pounds weight or so makes little difference to them if not already overloaded. Take the best advantage, therefore, of it that you can within reason, and up to a certain extent, there being of course always a limit to all good things.

Tents are a great and important feature in any long campaign. I don't hesitate to say that the single canvas bell tent as supplied to the British Forces, should be at once converted into double canvas tents. In the many long sweltering days when the Natal Field Force before Colenso, and later at Elandslaagte, were forced to lie doing nothing, the heat of the sun coming through the tent was very bad; one was always obliged to wear a helmet inside one's tent; and I think in the men's tents (ours with, say, ten in them, and the military who had, I am told, up to fifteen in one tent) the state of things was abominably unhealthy under the blazing South African sun, and I am persuaded that half the sickness among the forces was due to this insufficient protection from the sun. The double canvas bell tent with air space in between the two parts does very well, in both keeping heat and cold off. The Indian tents, of khaki canvas, double and generally square-shaped, are much the best ones we saw on the Natal side and should be used generally in the Army; the extra expense would be saved in the end by prevention of fever and sunstroke.

My own experience (when I and three other officers lay in a field hospital outside Ladysmith just after the relief, in a single bell tent, and saw Tommies all around us crowded into these tents with fever and dysentery, whereby all our cases, I am sure, were made much worse by the torturing sun which poured in all day on our heads), makes me very glad that the "Hospital Commission" is now sitting, and I sincerely hope that such absurd mistakes will be noticed and corrected by them for the good of the whole British Forces.

Regarding the Mauser rifle, as compared with the Lee-Metford, I personally have little experience, but I can only say that the Mauser to hold and carry is much the better balanced of the two, and that the fine sighting is superior. Also some military officers seem to say it is a better shooter at long ranges, and its magazine action is far quicker and superior.[9] Revolvers, as far as I know, have had no test at all in this war. The cavalry carbine, I believe, is universally condemned by all cavalry officers out here, and is doomed to go I hope, being, if used against foes with modern weapons, only waste lumber.

I believe that I am right in saying that pouches for carrying the rifle ammunition are universally condemned in favour of a bandolier, with flaps over every ten cartridges or so. In our Naval bandoliers the want of these flaps was especially noticeable, and the wastage of ammunition dropped out was, I am sure, excessive, besides leaving loose ammunition lying about for Boer or Kaffir to pick up, as they are reported to be doing. The web bandolier is lighter than the leather, and better, so I recommend it, if fitted with flaps, to the notice of the Naval authorities.

APPENDIX II

EXTRACTS FROM SOME OF THE DESPATCHES, REPORTS, AND TELEGRAMS, REGARDING OPERATIONS MENTIONED IN THIS JOURNAL

[London Gazette, January 26th, 1900.]

From General Sir Redvers Buller, V.C., G.C.B.

Chieveley Camp,
[Extract.]December 17th, 1899.