A NURSE'S LIFE IN WAR
AND PEACE

A NURSE'S LIFE IN
WAR AND PEACE

BY

E. C. LAURENCE, R.R.C.

AUTHOR OF "MODERN NURSING IN HOSPITAL AND HOME"

WITH A PREFACE BY

SIR FREDERICK TREVES, Bart.

G.C.V.O., C.B., LL.D.

LONDON
SMITH, ELDER & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE
1912

[All rights reserved]

Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson & Co.
At the Ballantyne Press, Edinburgh

PREFACE

The charm of these letters, it will at once be found, depends upon their simplicity, their artlessness, their obvious candour. They present a plain, untinted account of a nurse's career, of the difficulties she has to face, and the problems she has to solve. Those who wish to know something of a nurse's life and times will find in this writing a convincing narrative, unemotional and matter-of-fact.

This is no small merit, since the record of nursing experiences is apt to be blurred by exaggeration or made nauseous by sickly romance. There is pathos enough in the sick-room and in the presence of death, but those who come in touch with it would do better to hush the knowledge in their hearts, rather than to proclaim it on the house-tops. Apart from this, the world must be a little weary of the astute sick child who lisps melodrama into the ear of the "kind nurse," as well as of the bizarre aphorisms of the dying tramp.

The faults of management and lapses of discipline which crop up incidentally in the story are now matters of the past, and are no longer to be found in either the "Children's Hospital" or the "General."

The novice who is entering the profession of Nursing will find in these letters a sensible and exact view of the prospect that lies before her. She may further glean some insight as to the qualifications of the good nurse. These qualifications are to be expressed neither by certificates nor by badges, neither by starched uniforms nor by examination results. They are happily beyond the mechanical gauge of any examiner, and above the platitudes of the official testimonial.

Of the perfect nurse it may be said that "her price is far above rubies," and that her place is high in the company of admirable women. She is versed in the elaborate ritual of her art, she has tact and sound judgment, she can give strength to the weak and confidence to the faint at heart, she has that rarest sight which can see the world through the patient's eyes, and she is possessed of those exquisite, intangible, most human sympathies which, in the fullest degree, belong alone to her sex.

FREDERICK TREVES.

December 1911.

CONTENTS

A NURSE'S LIFE IN WAR
AND PEACE

I

The School, Lincoln,
1888.

This is my usual day for writing letters, and I have nothing but the usual things to write to you about. Each day we get up at the same time, do the same sort of lessons (not very difficult), eat the same sort of food (not very interesting), and go for the same dull walks, with an occasional game of tennis on a badly-kept lawn; but I have been thinking, and the long and short of it is, that I am going to persuade my people to let me leave school.

I think you know that some years ago I determined that I would be a nurse. To be exact, it was in 1883 that Queen Victoria instituted the Royal Red Cross, and in the same year I was grieving over the fact that none of the professions in which my brothers were distinguishing themselves would be open to me, as I was "only a girl"; so I at once decided that I would try to win the Royal Red Cross.

Well, I am not thinking so much about the decoration now, as wars seem to be few and far between; but still I think the nursing profession is the only one I am a bit fitted for, and lately I have been reading everything I can get hold of on the subject.

You see, I am not a bit clever, and I am no good at music or languages; so I could never teach. And, on account of having been so delicate when I was small, I am behind most girls of my age in many subjects; but in the two terms that I have been here I have won two prizes, and I think I can work up any subject that I want to as well as most people can.

I know I am not old enough to begin nursing yet, but when I am, it may be necessary to pay for my first year's training, so I very much want them to save the money they are now paying for my education to pay for that, as it seems to me that I am being stuffed with many subjects that, after I leave school, I shall have no further use for.

I have not yet quite decided which hospital I shall go to. It is clear that if I want to join the Army Nursing Service, I must go in for three years' training in a good-sized General Hospital first; but the best of these hospitals won't accept candidates till they are twenty-three, and that seems such a very long way off. So perhaps I may take a preliminary year in a Children's Hospital, or some other special hospital first, but I am not old enough even for that yet; and as I think F. is going out to the Canary Islands for the spring, I think it is very likely I may go with him, as you know I love travelling.

I like this place very well, and I have many friends here; but one thing is quite definite, and that is that I mean to be a nurse, and with that in view I think I might be employing my time more profitably than I am doing here.

II

Port Orotava, Tenerife,
April 1889.

Here we are, in comfortable quarters and in glorious sunshine, the grand old Peak of Tenerife (with its cap of snow) looking down upon us.

I wish you could be transplanted to this warmth and brightness; but you would not have enjoyed our experiences on the way here.

You know how cold it was when we left London on the Ruapehu; and all down the Channel it was very cold, but fine and calm. We called at Plymouth (such a pretty harbour); then, after we left there, our troubles began. The next day there was a heavy swell, and very few people appeared on deck. Our stewardess, they said, had "happened of an accident," but we were well waited upon by a nice little steward. M. was bad, and stayed in her berth; but with the steward's assistance I struggled up on the upper deck, and I would not have missed it for anything. Towards evening it was really blowing hard, and the waves were grand. We took such plunges down into the trough, and then the great ship trembled, and seemed to pull herself together to rise on the crest of the next wave and then take another plunge.

The men were on the trot all day, making everything fast. It was Sunday, but there was no service—the crew all too hard at work, and the passengers chiefly in their berths. Towards evening I was wondering how I should "make" my cabin, when the purser came along and asked if he might help me down below, as the wind was still rising, and he had been appointed "runner-in" by the captain, who said we had all better be down below.

That night and the next day were really very bad indeed. We were battened down, and the dead-lights were screwed on about 4.30 P.M., and the electric light supply did not come on till after six; so for that time we were in darkness, and some of the passengers were really very much frightened.

Tons of water poured on the main deck and down the companion-ways, and men were bailing it out near our cabins all night long. I kept feeling in the dark to see if there was water in our cabin, as it rushed past the door with a great "swish"; but the step was high, and it did not come over.

There was no sleep for any one that night; it was all we could do to keep from being pitched out of our berths.

The men were very funny as they bailed the water out and mopped up. "Reminds one of washing-day in our backyard—pity my old woman ain't here," "Sometimes we see a ship, sometimes we ship a sea"—and heaps more to the same effect. Our steward said he had never had to bail out so much water before, and he had been six years on the ship. One of the sails was carried away; and when we got to Santa Cruz the engineers discovered that part of the rudder had gone.

Two cooks and one of the sailors were knocked down and injured, but I think not very badly. Two of the boats were washed out of the davits, and one of the heavy deck-seats (next to the one on which I had spent the afternoon) was smashed to bits.

Sleep was quite impossible, as it was most difficult to keep in one's berth, and every now and then there was a great crash as things were broken in the saloons and galleys. We are still bruised and stiff from the knocking about.

I have always wanted to see a storm at sea; but I am now quite satisfied, and I shall never want to see another. It is most unpleasant to be battened down, and the engines sound to be so fearfully on the strain and tremble that you feel you must listen for the next beat of the screw, knowing that if the engines should fail your chance of weathering the storm would be a very small one indeed.

After that the weather improved, and also became warmer, and the passengers one by one came crawling up on deck; but most of them looked as though they had been through a long illness, and could talk about nothing but their alarm in the storm; and the captain owned he had had a very anxious time.

We landed at Santa Cruz early one afternoon—a very unsavoury town, with dirty beggars exhibiting various loathsome diseases and following you about.

After a little delay we secured a carriage and three horses to drive across the island to Orotava, twenty-six miles distant—a pretty, winding road, cool up in the hills, but becoming hot as we descended to Puerto Orotava. The hotel was full, but we secured rooms in a dependence; and when we had rested and changed, we found a carros ready to take us across to dinner. A carros is a kind of sledge on broad runners drawn by two oxen. They are much used in the town, as the roads are paved with little cobbles, which would pull the wheels about a great deal.

This is a nice hotel, cool and airy, and the garden is lovely—such quantities of roses, bougainvillias, and bright trees of hibiscus. There is a good billiard-room we can use, and it is open all down one side (only matting blinds). That shows how dry the climate is, as the table is perfectly "true."

The waiters are Spaniards, who know a little English and like to use it. "This is jarm, very goot," &c. We go about with our little red book of phrases, and sometimes get what we want, but more often fail to make ourselves understood. The natives are most interesting, the children such pretty little things with very bright eyes. Up in the hills they still consider it is winter, and the men go about with blankets tied round their necks; and when they squat down on the ground, the blanket flows out and makes a little tent round them. Down here it is really hot, and the small children wear nothing but a little chemise. The women are pretty, and they wear brilliant-coloured handkerchiefs tied over their heads.

We are close to the sea, and it is such a gorgeous blue; I have never seen anything like it before. I suppose it is very deep round here, and the Peak rises 12,000 feet, straight from the sea.

There is no English church yet, but the chaplain holds services in a large room fitted up as a church. Every one rides when he goes anywhere here, even when going to church; so during service there is a large company of ponies and donkeys outside, with the attendant men and boys (all in white suits, with bright-coloured sashes), and now and again the donkeys lift up their voices.

I have found a good chestnut pony ("Leaña") that goes well. They are sure-footed little beasts here; and it is necessary for them to be so, as there is only one "made" road, and for the rest we scramble up mountain paths. But when we get on the road they simply scamper along.

M. has not done much riding; and sometimes, when we are scrambling up a steep place, I look back, and find her holding on for dear life with a most resigned expression on her face. But I think she is enjoying it all immensely.

We walked up to the Botanical Gardens the other day, and they are perfectly beautiful—arum lilies and many of our choicest greenhouse flowers growing like weeds, and the ferns here are so beautiful too. Up in the kloofs (here called barrancos) we find maidenhair growing wild, and in such enormous fronds. I measured one, and it was two feet high. At the gardens a very handsome young gardener—a Spaniard—gave us huge bunches of roses to bring away. All the natives we come across are so polite and friendly (every man you pass raises his hat), we wish we could talk Spanish to them; but so far, if we can ask for what we want, it is quite as much as we can manage. The better-class people often speak French, and I get horribly mixed. The other night a solemn señor asked me if I spoke French, and I said, "Un très mui poco"!

The word they seem to use the most is mañana (to-morrow); as our nice waiter explained when a gentleman said, "Antonio, the coffee is cold," "Ah, it shall be hot to-morrow. With the English it is always now, to-day; with us it is mañana."

We hear that Laguna is the fashionable resort as soon as it becomes too hot down here, but that Icod is the fruit-growing village of the island; so we think of driving over and spending a night there.

III

SS. "Fez," English Channel,
June 1889.

Since my last letter we seem to have been chiefly engaged in wrestling with steamship companies in the vain endeavour to persuade them to remove us from the island. F.'s leave was up early in June, and as we had return tickets by one line, we wrote to them in good time to secure berths. At first they made us various promises; but soon we learnt the truth—namely, that all their boats were full in every berth long before they came near the island.

Then we began to tackle other lines; but, you see, nearly all the boats come from New Zealand or the Cape, and this is the favourite time for going home; also there is the attraction of the Paris Exhibition. So I cannot tell you on how many ships we have applied for berths, and always in the end received the news, "Every berth full."

Personally I did not mind, as I enjoyed every day on the island; but it was awkward for some things, and eventually we had to decide to sail on board a small cargo steamer that calls at Orotava instead of at Santa Cruz, and carries a few passengers home at a leisurely speed. But before I tell you of the voyage, I must tell you a little about our last few days on the island.

One day we drove over to Icod, a pretty little village about two hours' drive from Orotava. Much coffee is grown at Icod, and also plenty of fruit—oranges, lemons, figs, &c. We rode from there to Gerachico (a pretty ride along the shore), where a whole village was engulfed when the Peak last erupted; but it is now again built over, and we could not see much of interest remaining.

Señora Carolina reigns at the small Icod hotel, and made us very comfortable. But neither she, nor any one we met in the place, spoke any English; so it was good practice for us, and our Spanish came off better than I thought it would.

We decided not to climb the Peak, as you cannot do it from Orotava without spending a night somewhere up the mountain; but one day M. and I joined a party for a day on the Cañadas—the range from which the Peak rises. We mounted our ponies at 7 A.M. in brilliant sunshine, and at different points picked up our friends, till we were a party of ten, with a crowd of attendant boys to carry our lunch, &c. The first part of the ride was easy and pleasant; then, as we got higher, it became more of a scramble over loose stones, that any English pony would have said were only fit for a goat to be asked to walk over. Just as the path was becoming really steep we left the sunshine, and found ourselves in a thick bank of clouds, cold and damp, and had to go very cautiously, in single file. The chattering pony-boys were very silent (their spirits are easily damped), and said it was "mucha frio." Soon we emerged above the clouds into a scorching sun, and, finding a piece of fairly level ground, some of us took a little canter to try to get warm; but we came to a sandy place, and there Leaña took it into her head to lie down and roll. I saw what she was up to, and managed to roll out of her way; so my saddle was more damaged than I was. But as my clothes were very wet with the mist, the sand adhered!

We had a pleasant lunch, at a height of 8000 feet, while the ponies were off-saddled and fed; and some of us thought we should like to camp for the night and climb the Peak in the morning. But when we had finished lunch we had only two ham-sandwiches left between us, so concluded we had better return before night.

The view was lovely, looking over the banks of snowy-white clouds to the very blue sea, with the other islands in the distance, and behind us the grand old Peak.

The ride down (a different way) was rather perilous, the ponies jumping from rock to rock in a perfectly marvellous way, often just on the side of a precipice. But it was too much for some of our party, and they insisted upon walking down; and this rather delayed us, as they could not go nearly so fast, nor were they so sure-footed as the ponies.

We got in at 8 P.M., very tired and very sunburnt, but having enjoyed the day immensely; and our ponies were quite fresh, and wanted to gallop all the way directly they got on the road.

I don't think I have told you about the tree-frogs; they make such a noise after sundown you might think there were thousands of ducks quacking. A gentleman wanted to take some back to England with him; so one day we caught half-a-dozen for him, and they all escaped in our rooms! Such a hunt for them! And I could not finish telling you about Orotava without one word about the fleas. They are really a great trial, and seem to abound everywhere, especially in the carriages.

After various false alarms our little steamer, the Fez (560 tons), arrived, and began to take in a cargo of pumice-stone. The solemn old oxen brought the carros for our baggage, and our many friends escorted us down to the jetty, where most of the Spanish population seemed to be collected to see us off.

It is always a difficult landing at Orotava, and the small ship's-boat gave us a good tossing before we were hauled up the gangway. It was rather horrid before we got away, and I was the only lady who was not sea-sick before the anchor was up!

Such a change from the Ruapehu! Just one very small saloon, and our cabins very tiny; no upper deck, and very little room on the main deck; of course, no doctor on board, and no stewardess. But it was only for a short time, we thought, and we were determined to make the best of things, and soon found there were compensations—namely, a charming captain, nice crew, and most attentive stewards. And very soon my small deck-chair was established on the bridge, and I learnt more about navigation than I should have learnt in years on a liner. There were twelve of us passengers (all people we knew), and twenty-two officers and crew; also a big dog, and a sheep who occasionally strolled into our cabins, until nearly the end of the voyage, when the meat hung up in the stern (there was no refrigerator on board) had run low, and then one day I saw a sheep's skin being washed over the side! There were also many noisy cocks and hens, and a few ducks; and, last but not least, swarms of rats! I had some sugar-cane in my cabin, and the rats rather fancied it; and when I threw things at them to make them go away, they would sit on the cabin doorstep to wash their faces and lick their lips!

We had lovely weather as far as Madeira. When we got there we found it was a public holiday, and we should have to stay three days, as there were 300 pipes of wine to be got on board, and the natives would not work on the holiday. This gave us a good opportunity to see the island, and it was very enjoyable. It is far more green than Tenerife, but I should say the climate, though very mild, is not nearly so dry.

The captain arranged a very nice trip for us to a part of the island that is not often visited by people who call only at Funchal.

We had to get up in the middle of the night, and go on board a small launch (that takes the mails round the island) at 2.30 A.M. It was beautiful moonlight, and Funchal looked very pretty as we steamed away round the great Loo Rock. We reached Caliette at 5 A.M., and had to whistle for some time before the people woke up and brought a small boat out for us.

They made us some coffee, and we had breakfast, and then got into hammocks slung on long poles; and two men carried us up and up the hills till we came to a weird tunnel, which we went through by the light of pine-torches, and emerged in the most grand scenery—rugged hills and beautiful waterfalls, such very vivid greenery everywhere. And amongst all the semi-tropical vegetation we came upon one bed of English forget-me-nots that was most refreshing.

We lunched and rested for some time by a beautiful waterfall, called, I think, "Rabacal"; and then going down it was very hot, and, in spite of the steepness of the paths, some of us slept in the hammocks as we jogged along. The men carried us about twenty-five miles in the course of the day, and did not seem at all tired. But there was a little competition to carry me, as I was the lightest of the party! We got back to Funchal about 9 P.M., and were quite ready for bed.

Owing to this delay at Madeira (on account of the general holiday) the voyage is taking much longer than usual, and by the time we get in—or hope to get in—we shall be fourteen days out from Orotava, instead of the five days we took from London to Santa Cruz. In consequence of this the provisions are running rather low, and a few things have quite run out; but I have enjoyed the voyage immensely.

Before I return home, I hope to visit two or three Children's Hospitals in London, to be interviewed by the matrons, so as to settle where I will go to begin training. I am not old enough for admission to a General Hospital yet.

IV

Children's Hospital, London,
June 1891.

I thought I would wait till I had been here three months before writing to tell you of my raw probationer days. At first it was all so very new to me that it seemed very, very hard; and I really think that, if it had not been for the fact that one of my brothers had bet me that I should give it up in a fortnight, I should have done so in the first week. But I rarely bet, and when I do, I like to win! And having had to wait so many years before I could persuade a matron that I was old enough and strong enough, I really could not lightly give it up.

By the end of my month on trial I began to feel my way, and was quite certain that I wished to stay on if they would keep me; and though they were not enthusiastic in telling me my services were invaluable, their only cause of complaint appeared to be that I was slow. So they were graciously pleased to accept my fifty-two guineas (in instalments), and for that sum to allow me the privilege of working hard and fast for an average of eleven hours a day (paying for my own laundry, and buying my own uniform) for the period of one year.

I don't think I was slow in attending to the children; but at first a very large part of one's time is taken up with cleaning and housemaiding—sweeping, dusting, scrubbing, polishing the brass taps and bed-knobs, and washing the children's pinafores and bibs, &c.

When I began, I hardly knew the difference between a broom and a scrubbing-brush. I knew nothing of the labour-saving properties of soda and Hudson's soap, and I don't think I had ever dusted a room; so I did not know how fond the dust was of collecting on the top of screens and pictures and window-ledges, and it took me time to discover these things.

At home our breakfast-hour had always been 9 A.M., and, except for a day's hunting, there were very few things that excited my interest before that hour; so I expected to find it difficult to have had my breakfast and to be ready to go on duty at 7 A.M. But in looking back upon my first week in hospital, the thing that impressed itself upon me more than the trouble of early rising was the fact that during that first month I was always hungry! I have got over the difficulty now, as a weekly parcel of "tuck" arrives from home; and when this comes to an end, I buy some potted-meat or (if funds are low) some plain chocolate to carry on till the next parcel arrives. Nearly all the nurses either have food sent, or else buy a good deal. Of course I did not know this would be necessary, and had not got money at first. And there are a few nurses who cannot afford to buy, but of course we share with them.

Dinner is at 6 P.M., and that is the best meal of the day, as the Matron sometimes comes to it; so the meat is generally well cooked. It is always a scramble to get lunch some time between ten and twelve, and it is not interesting—just chunks of cold meat, and (every other day) bread-and-treacle. Our butter is issued to us twice a week—¼ lb. in a little tin mug—and we have to carry this mug about, for meals in the dining-hall and in the ward kitchen, for as long as it lasts. But if you don't keep a sharp eye on your mug, it often becomes empty in the first day or two, and you stand a good chance of having to eat dry bread for the days before the new butter is put out. I very much dislike coffee; but there is nothing else provided for breakfast but coffee and a loaf of stale bread, and our own butter (if we have any left), so we don't seem to start the day very well. For the rest, we make tea twice a day in the ward kitchens, and can use the ward bread. If funds are high and the lunch bad, we sometimes indulge in rashers of bacon; sometimes on Sunday we have a sausage or two; but it is more usual to fill in the cracks with tea and cake.

Up to now I have been working in a medical ward of twenty-one cots. The sister has charge of a surgical ward as well, and I think she prefers the surgical work; so we don't see very much of her, except when the physicians go round, or when we have very bad cases in. I like her very well, but she is rather stiff; and most of the information I am picking up is from the staff nurse and from the house physician, who is most kind in explaining the reasons for the various symptoms we notice in the cases, and what results he hopes for in the treatment he prescribes.

We had a very sad case in the other day. A working man brought in a little chap of two, called Stanley, very ill with pneumonia and rickets. He said his wife was in another hospital (for an operation), and he had to go to work and leave all his children in charge of the eldest, a boy of ten; and his wife had been so very ill he had had to go to see her in the evenings, and so had not noticed how ill Stanley was. At first he kept holding out his arms to me, and calling in such a piteous little voice, "Lady, lady"; but he soon got quite contented, only every day weaker and weaker. His quiet, patient father came every evening and sat by him, and his mother was to come to see him as soon as ever she was well enough; but the poor woman was too late, and when early one morning she arrived in a cab with a nurse from the hospital, he had just been carried down to the mortuary, and we could only take her to see him lying there, looking very sweet, with some white lilies in his hand.

Then we have dear Philip in. He is tubercular, and such a pretty boy; but I think he is too good to live. I am afraid his mother drinks, and he has a rough time of it at home; but his father is a very nice man. Here we all spoil him, as he is really very ill, but is always so patient and bright. He has a mop of brown curls and the smile of an angel. He is one of the few children of the slums who always insists upon kneeling up to say his prayers; and though sometimes he has so little breath to spare that I have to say the words for him, he just kneels there and smiles when I get hold of the words he wants to help him out.

As a contrast, another of my patients was Samuel Abraham, the very ugliest little scrap of skin and bones you ever saw. When he came in he was seven months old, and weighed only eight pounds. He was in for six weeks, and absolutely refused to put on a single ounce. Then every one got tired of Samuel, and as I had not had a turn at feeding him, he was handed over to me; and, more by good luck than by good management, he began to improve, and at the end of my first week he had put on six ounces, and since then he has steadily gained in weight, and begins to look more like a baby than a monkey. He went home the other day, and I wonder much whether his poor mother will be able to rear him, as I am sure he will miss the hourly attention he has had here. We should have kept him longer; but we had three cases of scarlet fever, and they had to be sent to the Fever Hospital, and all the children who could be moved had to go home, and the ward will be sulphured. But I am writing this letter as I sit in the bare ward beside one poor little boy called Jackie, who is so desperately ill with meningitis that they don't like to move him. It is a curious case. Jackie belongs to well-to-do people, and his illness was caused by a fall out of a mail-cart. His head is so retracted that it really nearly touches his buttocks, and he lies in a stiff backward bow. He is quite unconscious, and I have to feed him with a nasal tube; his temperature goes up to 104 and 105.

At first I was rather nervous at being "special" with him, as I have been here only three months, and I have never seen a case like this before; and the sister may not come in to see me, as she has to go into the surgical ward, and we may still be infectious. But of course I can ask her advice about anything, and the house physician comes in twice a day, and is most kind. He assures me no one could possibly do more for Jackie than I am doing. I think he will be moved to a small ward to-morrow (if he lives so long), and then I expect I shall have to disinfect, and very likely go to a surgical ward.

V

Children's Hospital, London,
November 1891.

I know it is a long time since my last letter to you, but really the days are so full of work there seems to be no peace for letters; and at night one is so weary that, after a wrestle to obtain a bath, one feels fit for nothing but bed. And when I get to bed I feel obliged to take my anatomy and physiology books and do a little study, as the residents are very good about giving us lectures, and I should hate not to do decently in the exams.

I think when I last wrote we had just closed the medical ward (whose Sister had had the honour of beginning my hospital education), and after a few hours off duty I was sent up to a surgical ward on the top floor, next door to the theatre.

I went up rather in fear and trembling, as it was noted for being the hardest ward in the hospital—as the nurses were responsible for the theatre as well—and I didn't see how I could squeeze more work into the days than I had been doing on the medical side. But I received a nice welcome from the sister, and soon found that she was one of the best. She didn't wait for us to do things wrong, and then scold us; but she took pains to show us the best way to do them, and then woe betide those who didn't do their best!

I shall always remember my second morning up there, when she said, "Nurse, your bathroom looks very smart and nice." It was the first time a Sister had given me a word of praise, and from that day I didn't mind how hard I worked to please her. There was a different atmosphere about that ward, and I soon felt better in it. The children, too, were a more cheery set. Some of them were very ill; but we did not get the poor little "wasting" babies, and it was very seldom we had a child who minded a noise, so that the boys (at certain hours of the day) could be allowed to sing all the popular songs of the day; and they were a very merry crew. Many people think it must be very depressing to see so many sick children; but, as a matter of fact, the children have very little pain—or, at any rate, only for a very short time—and many of them are enjoying a better time than they have had in their lives before. They are kept clean and warm, and have plenty of good food and plenty of toys to play with, and people who understand them when they have a pain, even when they can't explain where it is.

There have been many changes since I came here. Several nurses who came after I did have already left, and one has gone away ill. I had been in the surgical ward only a fortnight when I was unlucky enough to pick up influenza, and was sent to bed, with another nurse, in a small quarantine-room up above the measles ward. They were rather suspicious as to whether we had scarlet fever, as there was still some in the hospital; so no one was supposed to visit us except the home sister. Her visits were few and far between. Poor thing, she was stout, and the stairs were many! We both felt pretty bad with high temperatures, and should have come off badly for attention if it had not been for the "measles nurse," who had only two convalescent children, and she used to break the rules and come up to look after us. One day she had run up with an offering of buttered toast, when we heard a door open downstairs, and felt that the Matron was coming. Nurse vanished into our little kitchen-pantry; but there was no escape from that without passing our wide-open door, and, besides, the Matron was sure to call upon the measles ward on her way downstairs. The buttered toast was stowed away under the bed-clothes, and we were trying to be calm and answer Matron's enquiries as to our health, when we heard a rattling of the hand-lift on which our food was sent up from the kitchen, and we realised that nurse had determined to crawl into that, and so descend to her post of duty. With much alarm we heard the lift go down, and trembled lest the unaccustomed weight should cause it to go down with a run. Matron must have thought us very distrait; but we pleaded severe headaches—a plea that was true enough—and she soon went away, "hoping we should shortly be fit for duty again." We were very thankful when nurse appeared to report her safety, with nothing worse than a crushed cap and a crumpled apron, which had been severely commented upon by the Matron.

They were short of nurses, so as soon as I could get about I went on duty again, and had a nice welcome back to my ward. But it happened to be very heavy just then with several small babies, and two of them had hare-lips that had been operated upon, and it was most important that they should not be allowed to cry at all. So one evening I was sitting in the ward cleaning some instruments that had been used in the theatre for a nasty case of mastoid abscess, and one of these babies began to whimper. I jumped up to subdue it, and in doing so I had the bad luck to prick my thumb. The baby soon settled down again, and then Sister came in and cleaned and dressed my thumb; but in a few days I was in for a badly poisoned hand, and it had to be opened in several places by the house surgeon. He wanted me to be off duty, and out-of-doors as much as possible; so Sister arranged to give me some extra off-duty time, and was awfully kind in doing part of my work for me. But when she told Matron about it, Matron said, "Nurse has been off duty over a week with influenza. If she has to go off again, she had better go home and stop there, as she is not strong enough for the work." But Sister didn't want me to go, and fortunately the ward was getting lighter, and I could keep the babies quiet even with my arm in a sling; so I did what I could, and was sent into the kitchen when the visiting surgeon went round, lest he should order me away. The house surgeon was furious with the Matron about it, but he looked after me well, and though my arm was very painful for a fortnight, and allowed me very little sleep, it soon improved. But my thumb is still stiff and unbendable, and the house surgeon is afraid it will always be so, as he had to cut into it so deeply.

I must tell you about a quaint child we had in about that time. She was a little Irish girl called Kathleen, with a mop of red hair and a pretty little face, but with very crossed eyes. Kathleen was five years old, but had never walked, as her legs were badly deformed; but she got about at a great pace on the floor in a style of her own invention. You never quite knew where you were with Kathleen. She had a very sharp temper; but she was devoted to Sister, and was obedient to me. But any directions given to her as to her behaviour by other nurses were received with scorn and entirely ignored; and if Sister and I happened to be off duty together, on our return we generally had to remonstrate with the child for some piece of naughtiness, and then she would soon be sobbing and penitent.

One day I was off in the afternoon, and when tea-time came Kathleen was missing. They searched everywhere for her; and Matron, who happened to pass, joined in the search. Eventually she was found shut up in the Sisters' dining hall, very much engaged with the food-cupboard. The butter had all gone, so had most of the sugar, some of the biscuits, and, when discovered, she was just drinking up the vinegar with relish. Matron remarked, "A good toffee mixture!" And then she spent half-an-hour trying to make the child say she was sorry, but without success; so she smacked her, and sent her to bed! On my return, of course, I had an account of Kathleen's misdoings, and thought it better to take no notice of her. All the evening as I did my work the little white-faced thing sat up in her cot watching me go up and down the ward, with her poor crooked eyes quite dry; but when the children were all settled for the night and the lights turned down, I went to her, and she flung her arms round my neck and sobbed out, "I am sorry, and I won't do it never no more. But I wasn't sorry to that woman, and I don't care if she does smack me; but I shall tell my mother when I go home." Then I lifted her out of her cot to warm her toes by the fire, and after a long talk I extracted a promise that she would tell Matron she was sorry next day; and in a very few minutes she was fast asleep.

I expect that I shall be moved from this ward very soon, and I shall be very sorry. The work is hard and fast, but Sister works as hard as we do; so we are very happy together, and I feel I am getting on.

I have got used to the theatre work too, and (after much labour) have learnt the names of all the instruments in common use, so that I can hand them as they are asked for; and sometimes I am trusted to put out what I think will be required for an operation, and when Sister looks them over she doesn't often find anything missing.

VI

Children's Hospital, London,
March 1892.

Soon after I last wrote I was sent down to the Out-Patients' Department—quite a different kind of work, and I shouldn't like it for long, but it was interesting for a time.

The numbers vary a great deal. From fifty to a hundred children may be brought up in one day, and many of them require small dressings to be attended to. Then, on two afternoons in the week, the surgeons do small operations; and sometimes there are half-a-dozen children all recovering from anæsthetics at the same time, and all requiring to be carefully watched.

There is a dear old Sister in charge, and one afternoon a week we go out together to visit any special hip cases that are being treated in their own homes, after having been in-patients here. Such slums we sometimes have to go to; and yet it is wonderful how nicely the poor mothers keep these children when they are just shown the right way. We have one jolly little chap, who has been for two months in an extension apparatus rigged up on a big perambulator, with the weight hanging over the handle. He has improved so much that they will soon wheel him up in his bed-carriage, and I think the doctor will then sign his release from the extension.

Some of the nurses had rather a joke the other day—a joke which had good results for the rest of us. There is a confectioner's shop near here which we largely patronise, and these girls who were on night duty were hungry as usual, and they went into this shop for tea and scones before going to bed. While they were there, our secretary superintendent came in; and afterwards Mrs. —— (who is quite a friend of ours) told the nurses that, seeing them there, he asked her whether many nurses were customers of hers; and she, pretending not to know him, said, "Oh yes, sir; but we gets more nurses from the Children's Hospital than from any of the other hospitals round here. You see, they feeds them that badly there!" I believe he went straight back to the hospital and made inquiries about our food, for not many days after we had bacon for breakfast; and now there is always something besides the bread put on the table, and we find it a vast improvement.

Another thing has happened which has helped us considerably. A new nurse has joined, who is a cousin of the senior surgeon. She is an awfully nice girl, but does not look very strong, and after a week or two she retired to bed with a strained back (not very bad). Then her cousin visited her, and then he visited the committee; and it seems they had no idea we had to carry all the big lotion bottles up from the dispensary, and the heavy blocks of ice from the basement, and that we had to drag down the great bags of soiled linen to the basement and then along a lengthy passage—no joke on the doctor's day, when all the twenty cots have clean sheets and counterpanes, &c. So now the porters do these things for us, and we mournfully regret that we were not clever enough to arrange for one of our number to strain her back at the beginning of our training, instead of nearly at the end; but without a senior surgeon for a cousin it might not have paid! Nurse is nearly well again now, and she has asked me to spend part of my next free Sunday with her at the house of this same senior surgeon. I shall be horribly shy, but I can't well refuse.

My brother H. has come to live in town now, and it is very nice for me. He is reading for an exam., and has rooms in Barnard's Inn—such a funny old rookery near Holborn, and not far from here. He stands me a good dinner about once a week, when I am off in the evening; and in return I darn his socks for him, try to take him to church on Sundays, and report his doings in my letters home, so that he need only send them occasional post-cards!

While I was in the Out-Patient Department I was supposed to have my Sundays free, unless an "extra" was especially wanted anywhere; and one Saturday evening I was preparing to go away for the night, when a message came that the night sister was not well, and Matron (who was going away till Monday) wished me to go on duty for her for the two nights. That was about 6 P.M.; so I went to lie down for a bit, and at 10 P.M. the home sister gave me the report and the hospital keys, and I took charge, feeling rather important, but also rather a fraud, as several of the charge nurses then on night duty had been here for many years, and knew far more than I did. However, we got on very well together, and I rather enjoyed running round to the different wards, and helping with the bad cases.

There was one especially sad case—a girl of ten who had been frightened by rats when left locked up in a house. She had chorea so badly that we had to let her sleep on a mattress on the floor, and it was most difficult to keep any clothes on her, or to feed her. Poor child, her temperature gradually rose till it reached 107.8 before she died, a few days later. The doctors said it was the worst case they had ever seen, and I hope I may never see another case die of chorea.

On the Monday morning I went to bed at 5 A.M., and had to be on duty in the Out-Patient Department at 8 A.M. We had a heavy day; and when we finished at 5.30 P.M., you can imagine my disgust at receiving a message from Matron that I was to relieve the nurse who was in quarantine with a whooping-cough case, from 6 to 10 P.M. I was very glad the child whooped fairly often, as otherwise I should probably have gone to sleep.

The next morning I did over-sleep, and was ten minutes late for breakfast, thereby incurring a lecture from the Matron; but I could not refrain from remarking to her that I had had only two hours' sleep since Sunday (until that night), and she said, "What do you mean, Nurse?" And then it came out that when she sent me to quarantine she had quite forgotten that I had been on night-duty for those two nights, but I had to relieve in quarantine again that night in spite of it. Of course none of us ever mind doing extra duty when it is necessary, but there were plenty of others who might have done it, and got their full amount of off-duty time as well.

Since then I have been working in several different wards, and there are so many new nurses who have come since I did, that I am generally first probationer now, and it is far more interesting, and when the staff nurse is off duty, I take her place.

Matron has been quite civil to me lately, so I suppose my reports have been all right, as I believe she disliked me very much at first, and did not take much trouble not to show it.

Just now I am again in the Out-Patient Department, as Sister has been called home on account of illness, and I am working it with another probationer, and with no sister. The other probationer is two weeks senior to me, but she has not been down in the out-patients before, so we are not quite clear which of us is in command; at present I make her take the lead on medical days, and I do on the surgical days, as I am more used to the surgeons and their ways; and we get along very well.

I shall very soon have finished my year here, and have been very much exercised over the question of what I had better do next.

One of the sisters that I have liked here has been appointed Matron of a small Children's Hospital, and she has offered me a post as Staff Nurse. This was very kind of her; but, on the whole, I think I would rather get my adult training before I do anything else, as I am afraid it would be rather hard to begin at the beginning again, if I went on to being a staff nurse with children.

The Matron advises me to take a good long rest before beginning in an adult hospital, as I have got very thin and run down of late, and I am still a year too young to be received at the best hospitals; so it is just possible I may accept an invitation from my eldest brother to go out to him for a year in South Africa.

In the meantime, I am gathering all information about the London hospitals, and am to visit two or three of them for interviews with the Matrons before I leave here.

I have passed my exams. all right, so my first certificate is fairly safe. For many reasons I shall be very sorry to leave here, but oh! I am so tired, and to think of being able to stay in bed till I feel I want to get up, is a joy indeed.

VII

Kimberley, South Africa,
July 1892.

When I last wrote to you I was still a humble pro., often a weary, hungry, and foot-sore pro., but withal a happy one, and I hope one day to be a pro. again—but for the present, times have changed.

I have come out to stay with my brother, who is the Judge-President here. He has lived here for the last eleven or twelve years, but this year there is a great Exhibition in Kimberley, so he has taken a larger house for the time being, and will be able to entertain a few friends who will be coming up for the Exhibition.

I left Southampton in June, on the R.M.S. Scot, and had a very pleasant voyage out in good weather. I suppose people are always especially kind to a "lone lady" on board ship; at any rate, I had a very good time.

There were not many passengers on board, only forty-two gentlemen in the first class, and seventeen ladies, so I had a nice big cabin to myself.

The Scot is the only twin-screw steamer on that line, and it was lucky she had a twin screw, as, when I woke up the first morning out from Southampton, there was a strange silence on board, and when I got on deck I found there had been an explosion in the engine-room, and the top of the high-pressure valve was blown off; there was some talk of having to signal for a steamer to tow us into Brest, but after awhile, the engineers concluded they could patch up matters, and we could proceed with one screw working; this reduced our speed, but I did not mind that at all.

The Bay behaved very nicely, and I did not miss a meal in the saloon all the way out. We had a few hours ashore at Madeira while they were coaling and overhauling the damaged machinery, and the flowers and fruit were beautiful as ever; the men and boys swarmed round the steamer in little boats, and would dive into the sea for silver coins thrown overboard: one or two of them could dive down under our ship and come up on the other side.

The next day we passed the Canary Islands, and had a good view of my old friend, the Peak of Tenerife.

We had the usual board-ship entertainments; two dances (the stewards make a very good band), several concerts, an amusing "Trial by Jury" of one of the passengers, sports for the passengers and for the crew, plenty of cricket and other games. This is the programme for one day from my diary:—

Seven A.M.: Salt tub. 7.30: On deck, tramp and talk, and then read. 8.30: Breakfast; excitement over the sweepstakes on the ship's run, &c.; read, prepare programmes for the concert at night, hunt up people to sing, &c.; watch a whale and flying-fish. 12.30: Fire and boat drill by the crew. 1 P.M.: lunch, sleep. 3: play cricket. 4: tea, choir practice, tramp and talk. 6.30: dinner. 8.30: concert, tramp and talk and watch the phosphorescence, and look for the Southern Cross till 11 P.M.; then bed, and as sound a sleep as though I had done a day's work. A sea-voyage, with pleasant people on board, and not too rough a sea, is the most restful way of taking a holiday I can imagine.

It was very damp and hot crossing the Line, and the cabins became so stuffy that sleep at night was somewhat difficult; but one could make up for that by sleeping a few hours in the day when up on deck.

All too soon we anchored in Table Bay, under the shelter of Table Mountain. Many people are disappointed in their first view of Table Mountain, but it has a grandeur all its own, and it grows upon you.

My brother was unable to meet me as he had intended, but a friend of his came on board—a gentleman who was down in Cape Town for the session of Parliament—and I found it was arranged for me to spend a day or two with him and his family at Sea Point, a suburb of Cape Town, before continuing my journey "up country."

Having come nearly 7000 miles alone, it did not seem to make a great deal of odds having to do another 700 miles alone; but I was glad of a few days' rest, with pleasant people.

I had made so many friends on board the ship that it was quite sad to say good-bye to them all; and I had more than one kind invitation to stay with people in different parts of South Africa.

The day after we landed, I was taken to hear a debate in the House of Parliament on the Deceased Wife's Sister's Bill. The people I was staying with went on to a reception at Government House, and wanted to take me with them; but I begged off, not having unpacked suitable garments.

It is very pretty all round Cape Town, and I hope to see more of it before I return home.

Then, one evening at 9 P.M., I was seen off from Cape Town Station, and was once more a traveller on my own account, but not under such comfortable conditions as on board ship. I learnt that the dining and sleeping cars were attached to the trains only on one night of the week (the night the mail-boats come in), so I went in an ordinary first-class carriage, the ticket costing me more than £8, and found the seats were covered with horse-hair, and by no means comfortable for a night journey. Above the seat there is a shelf which lets down at night, so that four people can secure lying-down room in each carriage.

I soon learnt, also, that in this upside-down country, in spite of the fact that it was the month of July, it was also the middle of winter, and as we got up to higher altitudes it became intensely cold. I had the carriage to myself at first, and, having piled on all the clothes I had with me, I was trying to sleep, when, about 2 A.M., two old Dutch ladies were put in with me, and for the rest of the night they chattered, and ate cheese and apples and onions, so that sleep was impossible until they left the train at Matjesfontein.

I am told the scenery we passed through that night is very grand. I hope some time to see it under more favourable conditions.

Cold and hungry, about 7 A.M., we stopped for breakfast at Matjesfontein. I took my sponge-bag and towel, thinking I should find a waiting-room; but all I found was a tap on the platform, where we took our turn at a splash in icy-cold water, and then went on to a tin shanty, where breakfast was served—kippers, good bread, indifferent butter, and moderate tea.

There did not seem to be any hurry; but when we had all finished, and the engine had had a drink, and the engine-driver had lit his pipe, we started off again. And all that day we strolled across the Karroo, stopping (apparently) just when the driver felt inclined, and, when there was a hill, going so slowly one felt tempted to jump off and take a little exercise by running alongside.

It was very grey and brown, this wonderful Karroo country, with occasional kopjes (hills with great boulders of stones up the sides), and now and then a river or a stream, and always by any water a green line of the mimosa trees covered with their yellow flower.

As the sun grew stronger I began to forget the discomforts of the night, and some pleasant Dutch people came on board and told me many interesting things about the country we were passing through. Then I was introduced to my first swarm of locusts; a weird sight it was, too. They were pointed out to me first when they were some miles ahead of us, and looked like a small black cloud; then, as they came near, the sky seemed to become black with them, and we had to shut all the windows or the carriage would soon have been full of them. They tell me sometimes the young ones settle on the lines in such masses, and the lines become so slippery, the trains can't get on, and the men have to turn out and shovel them off. Fancy a Great Northern express being held up by a swarm of locusts!

For most of the way the old waggon-road ran alongside the railway, and was marked out by the skeletons of horses and oxen, or the sadder sight of a mound of stones with a little wooden cross, where some poor fellow had "fallen by the way."

We stopped at Victoria West for dinner; and as there was another train (from up country) in the station, we were halted well out on the veldt, and I had to stumble along to the station, and then, across what seemed in the darkness to be a rickyard, to the tin shanty where dinner was served. I was the only lady there; but I had only had a snack lunch on board the train, and we were more than an hour later than we had expected to dine, so I was too hungry to mind much, and had a very good dinner. There is only a single line for all this long track, so the delays to allow trains to pass at the stations are numerous, and it is well never to travel without a supply of chocolate, as the meals are very movable feasts.

I managed to sleep through that night, as it was not so cold, and I had the carriage to myself. Early the next morning we steamed into Kimberley, and my brother met me at the station.

VIII

Kimberley, South Africa,
December 1892.

Two things are prominent in my mind to-day: the first is that the thermometer is at 104° in the shade, and the mosquitoes are perfectly vicious; and the second is that the Kimberley Exhibition, with its round of gaieties, is actually closed. But before I tell you about this Exhibition, I must try to go back and give you a few "first impressions" of the Diamond Fields.

As you come into Kimberley by train, you first pass the Kaffir Location; and, instead of the picturesque dwellings that one sees in pictures, you see an exceedingly untidy collection of huts built of all sorts of odds and ends—bits of galvanized iron, old paraffin tins, &c. Then come small tin shanties inhabited by the "poor whites"; and so the houses improve, as one nears the centre of the town.

We drove down from the station in a Cape cart, which takes the place of a fly here. It is a comfortable kind of dog-cart with two wheels, drawn by a pair of horses; it has a movable hood, and the four passengers all sit facing the horse's tail. The most comfortable seats are at the back, and part of the driver's seat lifts up on a hinge while you get to the back seat.

I found my brother had taken a house and bought all the furniture in it, so there was not much difficulty about settling in, except hanging our own pictures and buying a little more linen, plate, &c.

It was a nice brick-walled bungalow, with the usual galvanized-iron roof, and a shady balcony (called here a stoep) all the way round the house, so that one could generally find a fairly cool place to sit.

He had also secured a very good white woman as cook, and a dusky Zulu called George, who waited at table, and generally fagged for the cook. George looked about fifteen, so I treated him as I would a boy of eleven or twelve, and he was soon my most devoted slave. But one day I asked him how old he was, and he said, "I was thirty-four last census, missus." But I shall continue to treat him in the same way, as it seems to answer well; and, after all, I think these blacks will always be rather like children, however old they are. I find he has a wife at a kraal, up country, and he is now saving up to buy some cows wherewith to secure another wife. I understand the present value of "a nice Kaffir girl" is seven cows!

There is a large compound at the back of the house; and thrown in with the house we found two dogs, a dignified cat, and some fowls and turkeys.

At first I thought the Kimberley people were rather uninteresting, and felt inclined to agree with the barber who, when he was giving me a most refreshing and much-needed shampoo after the dusty journey up, said, "You will think the ladies here funny, miss, for they absolutely never talk about anything but their dresses"; but, poor things, there was very little else to talk about.

Every one was kind in coming to call, and I soon found some very nice people amongst them. Sunday is the great day for all the gentlemen to call; and sometimes we had eight or nine men dropping in on Sunday afternoon, and generally one or two came in to supper after church.

There is a splendid library nearly opposite the club (which is also a fine building), and I very much appreciate the cool reading-room, with all the English papers and magazines, only about a month old.

We play a good deal of tennis on gravel courts. There are two days in the week when ladies can play at the club, and some people who have private courts have regular "days," so that I generally play three or four afternoons a week. Just lately I have had some good riding, as a young lady I know has gone down to the Cape, and has left a nice and young horse behind. Her mother offered to lend it to me one day, and I had a glorious gallop over the veldt with their groom; and then a kind note came, saying that "I was doing them a great favour by exercising the horse, as it was too fresh for the younger girls." I am glad to be able to do a favour so easily, and we make up very pleasant little riding parties.

I think the thing one misses most in Kimberley is water. If you ride or drive, you may find some out at the waterworks or (a variable amount) in the river out at Alexanderfontein, but the water you can find within walking distance might be measured in bucketsful; and the men are fond of talking of the "early days," when it was cheaper to have a bath in soda-water than in plain water, and of a notice that was said to have been put up in a hotel, "Please do not use soap, as the water is required for tea."

In the season, with careful watering, one can grow a good many flowers. Roses do especially well, and some people who are diligent with the watering-pot cultivate a small piece of grass; but a few days' neglect, or a few hours' visitation from a flight of locusts, and your treasured piece of grass is as though a prairie fire had been over it.

Of course there was much excitement up here about the opening of the Exhibition. The Governor and family came up from Cape Town for the ceremony, and stayed nearly a fortnight in Mr. C.'s house—which he gave up to them—and there was much entertaining.

We had the Colonial Secretary and his wife staying with us, and also a daughter of the Governor of Bechuanaland. As Mr. —— was the Minister in attendance on the Governor, he had to bring his secretary with him, and the police superintendent posted a mounted orderly at our gate to take his messages about; so we felt quite important.

Many interesting people from all over South Africa came up for the Exhibition, and I am afraid I shan't be able to remember all those to whom I have been introduced.

Mr. Cecil Rhodes was here for a few days, and we went to supper with him one Sunday evening. He is generally supposed to dislike ladies; but if that is true, he does not show it. There were not many there, and I sat next to him at supper. I believe it was a very good supper; but the conversation was so interesting (all about South Africa and South Africans) I couldn't attend to it, and I went home hungry, and had to have a private snack before I went to bed.

The morning after the Governor arrived we received an invitation to dine at Government House that evening; and it was rather awkward, as we had a dinner party here. But P. and Mr. —— went off to call and explain matters, and we were excused. They gave two huge garden parties, which we attended, and I enjoyed them very much—both the Governor and lady so very pleasant and friendly. Another day they were the guests of De Beers, and we also were invited; so we saw all the process of diamond-mining under very comfortable circumstances: the blue stone as it was brought up from the mines in little trucks and laid out in the sun (surrounded by barbed-wire fences) to pulverize, then collected and crushed and washed; and then we went into the sorting-shed, and were given trowels to sort with, and I found four nice diamonds in ten minutes, and should like to have kept them! then to the packing-room, and saw such diamonds, bags and bags of them. Afterwards we drove out to Kenilworth, the model village, all planned by Mr. Cecil Rhodes for the De Beers' men. Such nice little houses, with water laid on, and every convenience; a good garden to each house; a school and a club-house; a recreation ground; and then miles of fruit-trees—grapes, peaches, apricots, &c.—that Mr. Rhodes has planted and has had carefully irrigated. One could hardly believe it was so near to Kimberley, and Kimberley dust.

Every day at the Exhibition there was a good band playing, and every evening some fireworks and other entertainments. Cricket matches—played on a pitch of cocoanut matting—tennis tournaments, &c., were the order of the day; so that now, when the Governor and other visitors have returned to the Cape, and the Exhibition is closed, you can understand that Kimberley seems a little flat, and I am much looking forward to a run down to the Cape next month by way of a change.

IX

Kenilworth, nr. Cape Town,
January 1893.

Here we are, amidst lovely greenery and flowers, with the turtle-doves cooing in the garden, and with the very blue sea on one side and grand old Table Mountain towering above us on the other.

Kimberley was really a very warm place before we left it. We had had several bad dust-storms, when you shut up all the doors and windows, and still the dust comes through, and settles in inches on the furniture, and everything you touch or taste is dusty.

One of the worst dust-storms, and the hottest of days, was Christmas Day. We had invited a few lonely men to dinner; and when I came in to dress, George met me at the door, and said, "Missus, kitchen window all gone; dinner no good." And when I went to investigate, I found poor Stanley nearly weeping, as the window had been blown completely in, frame and all, on to the table at which she was preparing our dinner; and the dignified cat was licking up the custard on the floor!

Fortunately the turkey was saved, and, with the help of a few extra tins, we scraped together a fairly good dinner. I don't know what would become of the people in Kimberley if they were afraid to eat tinned foods.

Besides the dust (and my old enemies, the mosquitoes), the flies were very horrible. They settle everywhere, and it is necessary to keep everything very well covered up. You have to shoo them off the sugar before you help yourself; and if you venture to put some honey or jam on your bread, it is ten to one there is at least one fly on it before it reaches your mouth!

Well, we left Kimberley still gasping for rain, and the train strolled down to the Cape in two days and one night.

The scenery we passed through on the second day was very fine indeed, all through the Hex River Pass. I saw a good many baboons. One little chap scuttled away, and then sat down and threw stones at us. A most quaint little beast he looked, in a fury of a temper.

Mr. —— met us at the station, and they have such a delightful house and garden. You have no idea what a rest it is to see plenty of greenery again, after all the sun and glare of Kimberley.

All the people about here seem to be so very pleasant and friendly, I am enjoying myself immensely.

We went to dinner one night at Government House. I was shy at the prospect of going, but it was really very jolly. I went in to dinner with Captain —— of H.M.S. —— (now at Simonstown), and he was very entertaining. The men were all in naval, military, or court dress, and they looked so nice.

Another day Mrs. —— gave a picnic at Constantia, the Government wine farm, and the Governor and party joined us there.

It was a very pretty place, and after tea we went for a scramble up a ravine to pick blackberries. Part of the way up I was trying to disentangle Lady —— from a bramble, when the Governor turned round and called to her, "Hurry up, my dear, hurry up!" and she replied, "But, H. dear, I'm caught by my hair." So he had to return to assist; and then coming down he twice fell down, and each time pretended he had sat down only to admire the view!

On Sunday we went over to Simonstown to call on the Admiral's wife. There were two captains of men-of-war calling, and some other officers, and they invited us to visit them on their ships; but P. could not spare a day. I was rather disappointed.

Mr. Cecil Rhodes was away, but we walked over to see his place, Groot Schuur. It is a very lovely and peaceful spot, just at the foot of Table Mountain, and with lovely views in all directions. The hydrangeas that he is so fond of are quite a sight; they grow up the sides of a hollow glen in the grounds, and the mass of different shades is very beautiful.

Another day we went to lunch with the Chief Justice at Wynberg. Such a lovely place he has, with many beautiful trees in the grounds. Amongst others they have a good many of the silver trees which grow up Table Mountain, and, I believe, nowhere else in the world.

In the afternoon Lady —— drove us to a huge garden party at Newlands (Government House). I heard that 1600 invitations had been sent out, and I should think most of them had been accepted. But there was still plenty of room, and the grounds are beautiful; and there was a good band playing. One of Khama's sons was there, but I did not meet him.

My brother was anxious to have a little sea-bathing, so we stayed for a few days at a small place called Muizenberg, on the shore of False Bay. I have never bathed in such deliciously warm water before. I believe there are some sharks around Table Bay, but False Bay is considered quite safe; so many Cape Town people go out there to bathe, and some of them have bungalows near the sea.

I was very keen to climb Table Mountain, so I left P. for one night at Muizenberg, and went to spend the night again at Kenilworth, with some friends who were making up a "mountain party."

We were up early, and left in Cape carts—a party of eight—at 5 A.M., and drove round to Hout's Bay Neck. Most unfortunately it was a cloudy morning, and the mountain is said to be dangerous in a fog; but we kept hoping it would clear, and we began the climb at 6.45 A.M.

It was fairly steep, but never really a difficult climb. When we got to the ranger's cottage, we found he had just killed a horrid cobra snake that measured 5 feet 6 inches long. He did not hold out any hope of the weather clearing; but as we had gone so far, we thought we might as well go on. So we clambered to the top, where we arrived at 11 A.M., and were greatly disappointed not to get any view. The only compensations were the flowers we found, which were simply lovely—huge white heather, and many-coloured everlastings, and many flowers which I had never seen before.

Coming down in the afternoon, it was blowing and cold, and at one place we missed the path, and for about a mile had to force our way through some thick and very wet undergrowth, and then it began to rain. So we were rather a draggled-looking party when we reached the carts, and the drive home in our wet garments was not exactly comfortable.

This may not sound as though we had a very enjoyable expedition, and yet I really did enjoy the day very much. The people were all so jolly, and made fun of all the discomforts.

Major ——, the Governor's secretary, was one of the party, and he had provided himself with pins, needles, bandages, sticking plaster, and all sorts of other things, most of which came in useful in the course of the day. I heard afterwards that he told the Governor that he had never done such a hard day's work before, as we made him walk for eleven and a half hours, and only let him sit down for half an hour!

The time has gone so quickly down here, as there has been so much going on, and every one has been so kind. We have had about twice as many invitations as we could accept.

Now we are packing up to return to Kimberley, and as they have had some good rains up there, I hope we shall find it a little cooled down. If only we could take some of this lovely greenery with us! You have no idea how grateful you ought to be in England that you can always find a green field if you go to look for it, instead of perpetual greyness and brownness and glare.

Soon after we get back P. will have to start off on circuit in the colony, and I am hoping to go part of the way with him, and then to start off on an expedition to visit some friends up country in Natal; they are fifty miles from a railway. I am looking forward to this tremendously. And then soon after it will be time for me to make tracks for home, as I have now nearly reached the venerable age of twenty-three, and am therefore eligible for beginning my training in an adult hospital. And though this sort of life is very jolly for a time, I should not like it for always; it is not so satisfying as useful work.

I am quite sad at saying good-bye to all my friends. I believe one makes real friends more easily out here than one does in England. It must be something in the air.

X

Greytown, Natal,
April 1893.

After my last letter to you we journeyed back, over the seven hundred odd miles to Kimberley, and found life up there a little flat after the gay time we had been having at the Cape; but I had some good tennis and riding, and then we had to prepare for the circuit.

At each place that the judge visits he has to do a little entertaining, so he has to take a cook and a butler with him; and as some of the places where courts are held are quite villages, he has to take a certain amount of groceries along too—and, of course, wine.

The Government provide a saloon carriage with a small kitchen on board, so that is used as the judge's headquarters when near the railway lines; but many of the places visited entail long drives in Cape carts.

The first place we went to was Colesberg, and we arrived there at 6 A.M. We were quite a large party with the barristers, the clerk and registrar, the interpreter, and the servants.

We were met by the magistrate and the sheriff, with a smart escort of Cape Mounted Police, and a party of convicts to take the baggage up.

We found a nice little house ready for us, the owner having turned out to make room; and, after a wash and breakfast, the men all went off to the court, and I stayed to unpack and get things straight.

There were three coloured girls left to do the housework, &c. None of them could speak English, and they had several babies scattered about. I knew we had to give a dinner party before we left, and felt rather hopeless about how it would go with the material to hand. However, everything went off very well in the end. Lots of people called on me, and I had some good tennis at the club, and also some nice rides on a horse that was lent to me, the first one I have tried since I came to this country that had a good mouth; most of them are ruined with the bits they use.

The surrounding country was rather pretty, and good for corn and cattle.

We stayed four days at Colesberg, and then moved on to Craddock, ten hours on the railway. There was a lot of court work there, and it had to be fitted into five days; so the men were in court nearly all the time—one night up to 11 P.M.—and I found it a little slow. But I had some nice drives, one day going out to see some curious sulphur baths, and another day to a farm about eight miles off, where every imaginable kind of fruit seemed to grow.

After this we parted company, my brother going on to Middleburg, and I for another run of ten hours in the train to Port Elizabeth, where I joined the Drummond Castle for Durban.

Various people seemed to have asked the captain to take care of me, so I sat next to him at table, and he was most kind. When he found that I meant to put up at a hotel in Durban, he told me that he wouldn't let me do that, as he had lots of friends there, and I should have a much better time if I went to stay with them.

We got to East London next day. The sea was rather rough, and there was a lot of cargo to get on board, so we were there some time; but I didn't go ashore. When we had again got under way, the captain came up to me and said, "I have wired to some people in Durban to ask them to meet you when we get there." Was it not kind of him?

When we reached Durban I waited till the captain was ready to go ashore; and then we got into a kind of huge clothes-basket, and were swung over the side and into the tender, as these big steamers can't get into the harbour. And when we had come alongside the wharf, we found two ladies waiting for us, with a sweet pair of cream-coloured ponies.

They assured me it was quite all right, and that they really had lots of room, and the captain was to come up to lunch. So off we drove to such a nice house up on the Berea, with a lovely view right over the harbour.

They were very pleasant Scotch people, and they were so kind to me, driving me about to see the town, &c.

I stayed the night with them, and all the next day, as there was no train till 6 P.M.; and then they saw me off, and made me promise to visit them on my way back.

I got to Pietermaritzburg at 10.30 P.M. (I believe it is very fine scenery on the way up, but it was too dark to see it), and stayed a night at a hotel, where I found that my kind Durban friends had wired to the proprietress to look after me; so everything was very comfortable.

I was up early the next morning to have a look round Maritzburg, and made friends with the driver of the post-cart, who promised me the box-seat. "John" was quite a character, and he entertained me well for all the forty-five miles we drove that day.

We got away at 10.30 A.M. with six tough little horses and the funniest old Noah's Ark of a coach you ever saw. The road was very rough, and there were very steep bits down to rivers (or "spruits," as they are called here), and then a hard pull up the other side. We changed horses several times, and some of the teams were very raw and wild; and the leaders were sometimes inclined to turn round and come to see how the shaft-horses were getting on. So John had to use his huge whip at times, and I had to cling on, and I got so bumped about that I was stiff for days afterwards.

John had many interesting stories to tell, having been a despatch-rider for us in the Zulu War.

My friends met me a mile or two outside Greytown with a mule-cart, in which we drove up to their farm—such a delightful old house. It really belongs to Mrs. ——'s father, but he is in England now, where they have some children at school; so they have come up from their smaller house in Greytown to take care of the farm.

I have been here a fortnight now, and have enjoyed every minute of it. For one thing, the climate is delightful. It is pretty hot, but not the damp heat you find near the coast, nor the dusty heat of Kimberley. So I am feeling very fit, and the people are so nice I should like to stay for months. It is a very free-and-easy life, and we are waited upon by a man in a shirt and an apron of cats' tails!

It is very pretty country, and I am having delightful rides on a good horse. One day we rode out to see some people who live fifteen miles away from here, and they insisted upon our staying the night. Of course they don't get many visitors out there. The next morning we rode on to a place where we got a splendid view over what they call the Thorne country, right into Zululand. We could see the Mooi River valley, and they pointed out to me where the "defence of Rorke's Drift" saved Natal.

I had never been inside a Kaffir hut, so we went one day to explore; and I was taken to call upon "Sixpence," a Zulu who works here. We had to crawl into the wattle and straw hut on our hands and knees, and at first I could not see anything and could hardly breathe, as the only escape for the smoke from their fire is through the doorway; but we squatted down on the floor—which looked clean and polished with much sitting upon—and soon I made out Mrs. Sixpence (Sixpence can only afford one wife), with a blanket draped around her, and four children. The baby was absolutely naked, and the other children were chiefly clad in beads. And then there was Sixpence's mother, a poor old thing who is over a hundred, and can remember Chaka, the great Zulu chief.

I have collected many curios while staying here, and the other day I was given the skin of a huge python 18 feet long, which had been shot near to the house not long before. I can't bear snakes and creeping beasts, and there are a great many of them up here. There is more grass than there is in Cape Colony, and so better cover for the beasts. The other day, when I was out riding, my horse gave a great jump aside, and after I had remonstrated with him I looked back, and saw a horrid snake sitting up and hissing at us; so I had to explain to my gee how sorry I was that I had spoken!

The doctor with whom I am staying has to take very long journeys on horseback to see his patients. He seems very popular, and often has to go to Kaffir kraals a long way off, though many of the natives still stick to their faith in the witch-doctors and their weird remedies. Very often they have no money, so he is paid in kind; and sometimes he returns from a visit to a chief with one or two cows, which he has to drive home before him.

Several people have asked me to stay with them; and if I was not in such a hurry to get back to work, I am sure I could put in several months up here with much enjoyment, the Natal people are quite delightful, and so hospitable. But John has promised me the box-seat on his Noah's ark again on Tuesday, and I must once more make tracks for Kimberley.

XI

Kimberley, South Africa,
June 1893.

I managed my journey back from Natal very comfortably, and made several new friends on the way.

The drive on the post-cart from Greytown to Maritzburg was somewhat perilous, as there had been a great deal of horse-sickness about, so that good horses were scarce; and several of our teams were very raw, and there was much bucking and kicking before each start; and several times the harness broke down, and John had to descend to make repairs. I am sure the passengers in the body of the ark were terrified lest the horses should take it into their heads to start off while the reins were entrusted to me; and though I am pretty good at managing a horse, I should be shy of trying to drive six of these bucking creatures. However, we got safely down to Maritzburg in the course of the day, and again I had to spend a night there, taking the train the next morning for Durban.

The railway between these two towns is a wonderful piece of engineering work, crawling up one side of a mountain and scuttling down the other; very fine scenery, with sub-tropical vegetation, all the way down.

My good Durban friends again met me, and were most kind, putting me up for the night, and then seeing me off on the Courland Castle, rather a tub of a coasting vessel, that gave us such a pitching about that even I succumbed and was sea-sick. This greatly annoyed me, as I had come all the way out to the Cape without a qualm!

I had meant to do a jaunt up from East London to visit some people at Grahamstown and at King William's Town, but I was so happy at Greytown that I stayed on longer than I intended, and had to give up the other visits.

We anchored off East London for some hours, and the captain took me ashore to lunch with some friends of his; and they took us for a nice drive round the town and out to a place called Cambridge, where we picked oranges and lots of flowers. The scenery at the mouth of the Buffalo River is very pretty.

Then we went on to Port Elizabeth, and the captain again took me out to lunch; and we had a pleasant day exploring the town with some of his friends, and in the evening they saw me off by train for Kimberley. The train was rather full, but I was so tired that I slept all night, and woke up only just in time to get some breakfast at Craddock. I am getting quite experienced in making good use of the twenty minutes they allow you to get meals at these wayside stopping-places.

All that day we were strolling along in the train—dinner at De Aar Junction in the evening—and at 4 A.M. the next morning I reached Kimberley. No one to meet me, and no cabs; so I left my baggage with a porter, and walked down to our house. Peter, the cat, was holding an "at home" in the garden, and Carlo, the retriever, was on the stoep to welcome me, and assisted me to find the key under the doormat; and I was glad to find my bed ready to tumble into, after a much-needed wash.

It is winter here now, and the people seem rather more energetic than usual. I have been to two dances since I got back, and there are some dinner parties in prospect.

The other day I went down a diamond mine—a thing visitors don't often do, though, of course, a good many see all the workings above ground. I had to dress up in a canvas overall suit and sou'wester, and then, in a very rough cage, we were lowered to the 1800-feet level. I hear they will soon be working at 2000 feet below the surface, but 1800 feet is the depth they are working just now.

It was all very interesting—swarms of natives (with very little on!), and the fussy little trucks rushing about with their loads of the blue-stone, in which the diamonds are found—but I was rather glad to get back to the daylight again.

Then on Sunday afternoon I was invited to go and see a war-dance by the Zulus in the mine compound. It was really very fine. Only one tribe is allowed to dance at a time, or there would soon be fighting; and the men of the other tribes kept away at the far end of the compound, and would not look on. There were about forty Zulus dancing. They were dressed in little aprons of cats' tails and a few beads, and wore feathers on their heads, and were waving skin shields and knobkerries (sticks with weighted knobs). They all stood in a row, and stamped, and clapped, and danced, and sang in very good time; and then single ones stalked out in front of the others, and, throwing themselves into extraordinary attitudes, with much stuttering and stammering, they recounted the great deeds they had done in war, and the others all chimed in with great "Hoos" and "Hoofs" of approval, stamping on the ground like angry bulls. Some of these men fought against us in the Zulu War. After the dance was over, one very line fellow was introduced to us as the man who had carried a lot of Englishmen out of the mine when it was on fire a year or two ago.

I think it is a wonderful system by which all these tribes—that have hated each other for generations—can be made to live together in one compound, working side by side, and earning very good wages. They have separate huts and messes, but they buy at the same store, and share the same chapel, hospital, and swimming-bath.

There are about 2000 men in the compound, and they all seemed very happy. No beer or spirits are allowed. Any man who likes can learn to read and write while he is in the compound; and many of them were sitting round the fires, where they were boiling their mealy meal, reading to their mates.

We went into the hospital, which was very clean and trim. Natives in white suits, acting as attendants, showed us with pride their neatly-kept charts. There were one or two minor accidents in, and some bad cases of pneumonia, but they all appeared well cared for and comfortable.

The lady who lent me her horse has now returned to Kimberley, so I have not had so much riding lately; but the other night we had a glorious scamper out to Alexanderfontein by moonlight. About ten of us went, and we had supper out there. We had rather a mixed lot of horses and saddlery, and on the way back first one saddle came to grief, and then another. I distributed my gear by degrees—a girth to a gentleman who was riding with only one girth and it gave way, and I had two; a stirrup to a lady who dropped hers, and came off in consequence; and one of my reins to another lady, whose horse was too excited by the crowd of us, and required to be led. The others chaffed me, and begged for the bridle, and then for the saddle!

Now I am busy packing up for home, and trying to arrange things for my brother, who, when I go, intends to move into a smaller house just opposite to the club. There is also a good deal of tennis on just now, and between whiles I am struggling to pay my farewell calls. I was rather surprised to find there were about forty people I ought to call on; and as Kimberley does not wake up from its siesta until 4 P.M., and it is dark by 6 P.M. now, it is difficult to get through things, and George will have to take some P.P.C. cards round for me.

R.M.S. "Scot," Bay of Biscay,
July 1893.

I am sorry I neglected to post this yarn from Kimberley; but I believe I will still post it when I land, as I may not see you yet awhile, and it will bring the history of my travels up to date.

I was more sorry to leave Kimberley than I expected to be; but I suppose one can't live in a place for a year without making some friends whom you are sorry to leave.

I journeyed down to the Cape all alone; but some Cape Town friends came to see me off, and it was quite home-like to be on the Scot once more.

The chief officer invited me to sit at his table, and we have had a delightful voyage, good weather, and pleasant people.

We had a few hours ashore at Madeira, and I think the flowers seem more beautiful every time I go there. Some day I should like to stay some weeks in the island.

We were all shocked to hear of the wreck of the Victoria off Tripoli, and the loss of 420 lives; it does seem terrible.

We find that, if all goes well, we should land on the day of the wedding of the Duke of York and Princess May.

The Bay of Biscay is behaving like a lamb. This is the fourth time I have been through it, and only once has it kicked up its heels and been really disagreeable.

I am going to spend a few days in town before I go home, so as to be interviewed by two or three matrons of the big hospitals. I think I know which hospital I would like best to get into, but whether I can persuade that particular matron that she really will have a vacancy in the autumn (I must spend a little time at home first), and that I really am the most suitable candidate for that particular vacancy, remains to be proved.