XXXV
Pinetown, Natal,
September 1900.
I will just finish telling you of my travels while they are fresh in my memory, and then this letter can wait till there is enough material to fill it up.
I was very sorry to hear from my friend on the ambulance of the death of Sir William Stokes (physician); he was ill only four days, and it seems only the other day he came round this hospital and was so cheery and bright, and I know he was meaning to say a good deal to the Hospital Commission in favour of the hospitals out here, and of the work they have done.
I just had dinner with my friends at the Royal, and then the 'bus took me to the station with my heavy bag of shells, &c., in time for the 7.40 P.M. train back to Colenso. I was awfully tired, but the mosquitoes were bad, and did not let me have much sleep.
The next day I was invited to go with a picnic party to the Tugela Falls. A large ox waggon was loaded up with children, provisions, &c., and I went with some more people in an Army Service Corps Scotch cart, with no springs, drawn by four mules, who frequently ran away, and who seemed to have a rooted objection to keeping to the road (or rather track); so the journey was rather perilous and distinctly painful.
We passed Fort Wylie, and saw where all the fighting took place on Pieter's Hill, and we saw the rough bridge that the Boers had made over the Tugela by simply pulling up our rails with the sleepers attached and throwing them into the river.
We had lunch close by the Falls—even after this very dry season it is quite a big fall—and after lunch we climbed the hills around, including Hart's Hill. On the top of this hill is a big memorial stone to Colonel Thackery, several more officers, and sixty-seven men of the 27th Inniskillings, who fell up there, and we also saw their grave (fenced in) at the foot of the hill.
By the time that we got down to the line again it was blowing a gale, and such dust, so some of us sheltered in a platelayer's cottage.