manage, by permission of the Admiral at Cape Town, to get us passages on
board this ship. Of course we were delighted, and early next morning we
embarked. It was the first time I had ever been on a troopship, and
every moment was of interest. As spick and span as a man-of-war, with
her wide, roomy decks, it was difficult to imagine there were 2,000
souls on board the _Victoria_, and only in the morning, when the
regiment paraded, appearing like ants from below, and stretching in
unbroken lines all down both sides of the ship, did one realize how
large was the floating population, and how strict must be the discipline
necessary to keep so many men healthy, contented, and efficient. There
were a few other civilians going home on leave, but we were the only
so-called "indulgence passengers." The time passed all too quickly, the
monotonous hours of all shipboard life, between the six-thirty dinner
and bedtime, being whiled away by listening to an excellent military
band.

We were told to be dressed and ready to disembark by 6 a.m. on the
morning we were due at Durban, as the Admiral had given stringent
instructions not to delay there any longer than was necessary. I was
therefore horrified, on awaking at five o'clock, to find the engines had
already stopped, and, on looking out of the porthole, to see a large
tender approaching from the shore, apparently full of people. I
scrambled into my clothes, but long before I was dressed the tug was
alongside, or as nearly alongside as the heavy swell and consequent deep
rolls of our ship would allow. Durban boasts of no harbour for large
ships. These have to lie outside the bar, and a smooth sea being the
exception on this part of the coast, disembarking is in consequence
almost always effected in a sort of basket cage, worked by a crane, and
holding three or four people. When I got on deck, the prisoners were
still on the tender, being mercilessly rolled about, and they must