four days' voyage to Walvis Bay. It was a case of bedlam as to noise,
and "muck in" and take what you can get.

Though my knowledge of organisation for a campaign is not great, I
would suggest that for campaign work the only kind of ship used should
be a vessel absolutely and completely fitted up as a troopship. If the
ships the Government used for the South-West campaign transport had all
been fitted up uncompromisingly as "troopers" I fancy we should have
fared better.

At 8 a.m. on the 9th we arrived at Walvis Bay. General Botha, who, with
his Chief of Staff, A.D.C.'s, etc., had embarked at the Cape on the
auxiliary cruiser _Armadale Castle,_ arrived at Walvis later in the
morning. We spent the day on board the _Galway Castle_ awaiting orders
and the disembarkation of horses.

Since the beginning of the operations in South-West Africa the world
has been flooded with descriptions of Walvis Bay; at least I have seen
two books with long descriptions of the place, and more than a dozen
articles on the subject. I shall not add to this list by any long (and
assuredly unconvincing) attempt at a new picture. When you have left
the green-covered kopjes of the Cape a few days before and come to
anchor in Walvis Bay on a cold morning you think you have reached
No-man's-land after a fast voyage. It is a first impression only. The
place is desolate enough; it suggests the Sahara run straight into the
sea, or the discomforting dreariness of Punta Arenas, in Patagonia.

But first impressions are not everything. Walvis Bay is desolate; a
study in yellow ochre sands, burnt sienna duns, tin shanties veiled in
hot desert winds, and a sea that seldom knows anything more than a