alcohol, I must say that it is our conviction that in the tropics a
certain amount of diffusible stimulant is very beneficial and quite free
from harm. And the cheapest and most reliable stimulant of that nature
one can obtain commercially is, of course, whiskey. This whole campaign
has been almost entirely a teetotal one for reasons of transport and
inability to get drink. Not for any other reason, I can assure you. But
where the absence of alcohol has been no doubt responsible for a
wonderful degree of excellent behaviour among our troops, I yet know
that the few who were able to get a drink at night felt all the better
for it. At the end of the day here, when the sun has set and darkness,
swiftly falling, sends us to our tents and bivouacs, there comes a
feeling of intense exhaustion, especially if any exercise has been
taken. And exercise in some form, as you have heard, is absolutely
essential to health after the sun has descended toward the west about
four o'clock in the afternoon. For men and officers go sick in standing
camp more than on trek, and, often, the more and the longer the men are
left in camp to rest, with the intention of recuperation, the more they
go down with malaria and dysentery.

It is no sudden conclusion we have come to as to the value of alcohol,
but we certainly feel that a drink or two at night does no one any harm.
But the drink for tropics must not be fermented liquor: beer and wine
are headachy and livery things. Whisky and particularly vermouth are far
the best. And vermouth is really such a pleasant wholesome drink too.
The idea of vermouth alone is attractive. For it is made from the dried
flowers of camomile to which the later pressings of the grape have been
added. One has only to smell dried camomile flowers to find that their
fragrance is that of hay meadows in an English June! Camomile
preparations, too, are now so largely used in medicine and still keep
their reputation for wholesome and soothing qualities that it has