We feel sure that it was all a mistake their coming here at all, and that they ought to have gone straight on board ship. Of course it gave us an awful lot of work, and did not do them any good. We must try to see the remaining twelve get off with the next batch.
The other day fifteen new orderlies came, men of the Imperial Bearer Company (chiefly recruited from refugees and other Colonials). Some of them are quite old and bearded, and there was much puffing over their march up from the station. It is so funny to have to hurry these venerable gents round the wards when they look at me solemnly through their specs, and the Tommies are rather inclined to humbug them.
Some of our original St. John's men will have to leave soon, as their time is up, and we are letting all those go who are not very keen on the work, but, unfortunately, some of the keen ones want to go too. I am sorry to lose them, and rather blame the sisters for it.
The orderlies have been awfully nice to me; two of the best have been promoted to be sergeants. One, who has been chiefly in the officers' ward (he is a railway guard at home), has been splendidly patient with them all; and the other is the man who has been in charge of the sanitary work and managed the coolies.
I have been having a little riding lately while the extra sisters have been here, and all the sisters in turn are having a few days' leave.
One day some people asked us to go for a picnic (riding), so we collected all the screws we could, and, making a party of twelve, we rode to a very pretty waterfall about nine miles from here, and they had arranged for tea at a quaint old farmhouse near by.
Riding back by moonlight my (funeral) horse was so keen that I could hardly hold him, so I was riding ahead with one of the men, when, hearing a shout, we hurried back and found the senior civil surgeon had had a tumble. He was not much of a horseman, and they had put him on the very quietest nag, but it had stumbled, and he came off.
He managed to ride home at a walk, though he was unconscious for a few minutes at first. He was a good deal shaken, and had to keep quiet for some days.
Another day we went to the Trappist Abbey; when we arrived, they kept us waiting some time in a room, and then a meal suddenly appeared—poached eggs, delicious brown bread, honey, fruit, tea, and tamarind wine. We were surprised, as it was early in the afternoon, but we felt obliged to accept it, and it was all very good, though I shied at the tamarind wine. Afterwards they showed us round the place.
It is really wonderful what these Trappists do for the natives, with their schools, shops for bootmaking, saddlery, tanning, ironmongery, printing, photography, &c.; but whether it does the native any real and lasting good to teach him all these things is quite another matter.