The steam was up and everything made fast in case we should have to put out to sea, but the storm soon passed over.
We reached Durban on 31st March, and now there is much speculation as to where we are to pitch our camp.
XXVII
Pinetown, Natal,
April 1900.
When we arrived at Durban the town was very full, and the sisters had to stay on board until rooms could be found for them in a boarding-house. Late in the afternoon a tug came out with a message that we were to disembark and go to a house called "Sea Breeze" in Smith Street. It was rather rough at the anchorage, and we had to get into a basket and were slung over the ship's side into the tug, then the tug had to go round and pick up a lot of lighters that had been supplying other ships with coal, &c., and by the time we got into harbour it was getting dusk, and the Customs House, supposing that all the passengers had landed earlier, was closed.
I had meant to leave our heavy baggage in the Customs House till we knew where we were going; but it was impossible to leave it loose on the jetty, and there were no cabs or trolleys about, but a mob of riksha boys, dressed up in feathers and horns and beads (and very little else), who were all clamouring to be allowed to transport us up town. Eventually we piled our baggage on these rikshas, and, distributing the sisters amongst it, we gave the boys the address, and, with much shouting, our cavalcade started off at a trot; we soon reached Smith Street, but then our troubles began, no one knowing Sea Breeze; we searched up and down the street, and one old gentleman told me he had lived all his life in Smith Street, but had never seen a Sea Breeze there!
I tried all the places where I thought our officers might be—the R.A.M.C. Depot, hotels, &c.—but could not find them, the sisters all very tired and hungry, and some of them rather nervous; then, by good luck, we met our Major, who had come out to see if we were comfortable in our quarters, and discovered that we had been given the name of the wrong street!
About 9 P.M. we found the house; but the landlady had given us up, and, thinking we should not land till the morning, had gone out; but some other lodgers (refugees from Johannesburg) raided the larder for our benefit, and we thoroughly enjoyed our supper.