inexperienced ones overlooked automatically the fact that we were in
the ranks and travelling to war by transport. It wasn't a high-browed,
superior outlook that caused our undoing, I fancy. The thing is, you
must rough it soldiering by ship before you grasp the idea. There were
other points, too.

[Illustration: Awaiting landing from the Transport]

[Illustration: Trekking over the terrible Sand Dunes near the Coast,
German South-West Africa]

[Illustration: Some of the first Burghers to land at Walvis]

When we got safely aboard the _Galway Castle_ many of us fancied, in
expressive phrase, that we were "well away"; that we had struck a good
thing. Our officers were accommodated in befitting state in the first
class; our warrants and staff non-commissioned dignitaries were also
fixed up in correct style; the rest of us had plenty of room and
quietness to ourselves in the third class. All this by 2.30 in the
afternoon.

And then eighteen hundred more warriors filed down the quays and, like
Mr. Jim Hawkins, came aboard, sir. Now most of these were as good
fellows as you could wish for; but they were landsmen, such as never go
down to the sea in ships. A large proportion, indeed, had never seen
the sea before viewing it at Cape Town. (South Africa is a fair-sized
territory.) Very few of them were good sailors. It is not a man's fault
that he is not a good sailor; nor is he to blame for knowing little of
the ways that make for cleanliness and comfort under even the most
trying conditions on shipboard. But on the whole we did not enjoy that