XXXVII
Pinetown, Natal,
October 1900.
We have had a good deal of rain lately and the country is looking lovely again: you can almost see the things growing in the garden.
Sometimes it rains for three days without stopping, and South Africa without the sun always looks very gloomy, but when the sun comes out again it makes up for the gloominess.
It has begun to get very hot rather earlier than usual, and the thermometer showed 94° in the shade the other day.
Last month we took in fifty more men who had been prisoners with the Boers; a good many of them were gentlemen troopers of the Yeomanry; they were sent here via Delagoa Bay; one of them brought a parrot, and there were several small birds as well.
Then the other day we took in eighty men from Charlestown, nearly all convalescents, and such a mixed lot of regiments—Scotch, Irish, Australians, New Zealanders, and Tasmanians, and one little Australian bugler, aged fifteen, whom all the men spoil.
The poor Major of the R.A.M.C., who I told you was so ill, died in the early part of this month; it was very sad, as he knew so well what all the bad symptoms meant as they appeared.