fir lined roads on the Rondebosch side of Table Mountain complained
daily under the traffic of wagons and motors, horses, mules and guns;
it ruined the roads and begot unceasing clouds of dust.

And from breakfast-time till late afternoon every street leading to
Cape Town and to the great Supply and Ordnance Stores at Maitland and
at Portswood Road was filled with grey and khaki carts and wagons
roaring steadily along in golden dust. In the whole Peninsula the
normal interests of life were for the time being completely
side-tracked.

Being associated directly with the Commander-in-Chief and Headquarters,
we were fortunate in having our camp on the finest piece of ground on
the estate; our tents stretched down a strip of sloping sward,
sheltered from the wind by the wonderful trees that luxuriate on the
lower falls of Table Mountain; from one's tent entrance the eye was
caught by a panorama sweeping a radius of twenty miles inland. I shall
never forget those days when in the morning wind and sun I helped to
make out requisitions for shirts and breeches and saddlery to the notes
of wood music; nor those nights when we lay in our blankets on the
grass, stars swinging above, the town-lights winking away below us. It
is not often in life that one slips into dreamless slumber on soft
grass, lullabied by the night-song of a south-wester in pine trees
centuries old.

If we had our discipline and our work at Cape Town, we had our
compensations, too. At that time khaki was completely the fashion
there. On the long promenade down Adderley Street to the pier-head you
could have counted a dozen men in khaki to one in mufti. It reminded
one of the days of the South African War fifteen years ago. There was