General Hospital, Natal,
March 1901.

We arrived at Durban on February 23rd, and were eventually allowed to land without being quarantined.

It was Saturday afternoon, and no orders came on board for us, and by the time the Boer prisoners were landed, and we were able to get our baggage ashore, the Durban P.M.O. had left his office; so we felt free to do as we pleased till the following day, when (though Sunday) we might be able to report ourselves.

If we had been new sisters arriving it might have been awkward, but it suited us down to the ground.

Sister —— just caught the evening train up to Pinetown to stay with some friends, and I promised to wire to her if we were needed on Sunday; otherwise she would return on Monday.

Then a kind sergeant-major helped me to get our baggage on to a trolley and take it up to the medical store, where it would be quite safe; and after that I went up to see some friends on the Berea, and they most kindly took me in.

From them I learnt many things; amongst others, that our old hospital had been turned into a Rest Camp of 300 beds, and that they thought we were to have the chance of going back there, but, for various reasons, they strongly advised us not to do so if we could avoid it; that our late medical officers had already been sent farther up-country (we had hoped to work for them again, but did not succeed in doing so).

On Sunday morning I went to report "ourselves" to Major ——, and he was very pleasant and kind, wanted to hear all about our voyage home, &c., and asked me where we wanted to go? So I told him "as near up to the front as we could get"; then he told me that the order from the Natal P.M.O. was for us to return to Pinetown, but if I liked he would wire to him to ask him to let us go up-country, and that we could stay with our friends till he got a reply.

I had a quiet Sunday in Durban, meeting many friends, and going to church in the evening.

The next morning I met Sister at the station, and the first thing she said to me (before I could tell her the orders) was, "Sister, I won't go to Pinetown, I would rather resign, if they want to send us there." So then I told her that our fate was waiting on a wire from the P.M.O.; and as we walked along to the office she told me a good deal of what she had heard about Pinetown—of course we can scarcely judge how much of it is really true, but at any rate it appears that some of the sisters now there seem to think that they have come out to South Africa only to enjoy themselves, and that they are setting about it in a way which no lady would care to emulate.

It was rather strange that we should both have received the same advice from quite different sources: "Don't go there."

Together we went to the office, and stayed there some time, but no wire had come; they thought we should probably go somewhere by the 6 P.M. mail train. We were advised to take some food if we went up, as meals on the way were uncertain. So I stocked my tea-basket, and bought some potted meat, &c., in case we went.

All day we had to hover near the office or within sound of the telephone, and at 5 P.M. a wire came for us to go up to No. — General Hospital by the mail train.

One of the medical officers kindly helped us to get our baggage to the station, and secured a carriage for us.

It is always a shaky journey up from Durban, but we got some sleep, and the next morning, when we were having breakfast at Glencoe, we were delighted to meet Major ——, of the Royal Engineers, an old patient of ours, who has done splendid work up this side; he was going down to Ladysmith.

A little farther on we met two officers who had come out in the Canada with us, so they came into our carriage, and shared our lunch, and we brewed some tea with my tea-basket. At Newcastle General Hilliard was on the platform, and also a sister whom we knew.

We had no sooner reached our destination than Sergeant C. came up to welcome us—he had been at Pinetown—and also went home with us; he does not seem at all pleased at being sent here, and is already trying to get a change.

This hospital has been a "Stationary Hospital" up to now, but is just being turned into a "General Hospital," so they say it is in rather a muddle at present.

Sister —— and I were allotted a tent with just bed and blankets—nothing else; we were not required on duty that day, so we went down to the coolie store and invested in some cheap sheets, a bucket, basin, &c.; also table fittings, as they told us no plates, cups, knives, or anything were provided. Many people out here prefer to sleep in blankets, but as the army blankets are dark brown, rather of the texture of horsecloths, and as these were obviously not new (and the washing and disinfecting of army blankets in a satisfactory way is still an unsolved problem out here), we preferred to put some sheets in between!

The air is lovely and fresh up here, where we are 5000 feet above the sea-level—always hot sun in the day, but very cold nights.

A most unfortunate thing occurred the first night we were here: a sister, who came out in the Canada with us, had two large cases of feather cushions given her by the Princess of Wales—whom we must now learn to call Queen Alexandra—with the request that they should go to men in hospital near up to the front. She had promised me that if I went up-country I should have one of the boxes to distribute.

When we arrived here I found a wire from her saying that she was passing our station about 8.30 P.M., and would I meet her? She was one of the sisters who had landed at Cape Town, but was now coming down to a hospital on this side. So, when we had got our tent straight, we went to the Lady Superintendent and said that if we were really not wanted on duty, might we go down to the station after dinner to meet this sister? She said certainly we might; she was sorry she had some letters to write, or she would have walked down with us.

When we got to the station we found we were rather too soon, and there were a lot of orderlies standing about, and a few officers (whom, of course, we did not know), so I said to Sister, "I vote we walk about outside till we hear the train coming"; and we were just beating a retreat from the platform when an officer stalked up and said, in a very rude way, "Who are you?" We just gave our names, and were walking away, when he again stopped us, and asked what we wanted at the station? By this time Sister —— was bubbling over with wrath, but we had to explain that we had obtained leave to meet a sister. I believe if I had said that I was expecting a box of things from the Queen, he would have knuckled under, but I was not going to trade on that; and the long and short of it was that he did not believe that we had been given leave, and said we were not allowed in the station and were to return to camp.

Of course we went back furious at his rudeness, and then discovered he was the C.O. here! I expect the Lady Superintendent had forgotten to tell him we had leave (or something of that kind), but he might have believed our word, and not been so rude to us before a lot of orderlies, and she was very much annoyed with him.

The next morning, when we were formally introduced to him, he was, I think, penitent, and invited us to go out for a picnic on the following day, when some people whom we knew were coming here, partly to inspect the hospital and partly for this excursion. Sister —— went with them, but I was going on night duty that night, so I begged off.

This is a "Ration Station" (as it would be difficult to buy food privately so far from the base), therefore we don't get quite so many "allowances," but the "skoff" seems very fairly good; they bake bread in the camp; and as long as you can get decent bread you can be content.

We are just on the border of the Transvaal, and there are plenty of Boers about; two or three of our columns are trekking about in the district, and they say that we often have sick and wounded sent in from them.

Most of the sisters here seem to ride, but I can't take to that again yet. The night sisters had a little excitement two nights ago, when two horses galloped into the camp, and they—with the help of a convalescent officer—caught and tethered them. They hoped they would be allowed to keep them, but, unfortunately, they were reclaimed by some Yeomanry men; but they say that very often droves of horses pass here, and sometimes a few escape, or are left behind too sick (or too tired) to go on; and then the orderlies catch them and sell them to the sisters for £1 or £2!

I think there are about 500 beds here, nearly all under canvas. There are a few buildings of wood, and amongst them is a small room that the sisters use as a duty room, and the night sisters (two of them) sit there, and they have a small stove for boiling water, &c. There is no arrangement for hot water near the tents for the patients—we used to have (and I have seen them in other hospitals too) boilers on wheels with a coolie to keep the fire going, and if the water was not always hot, the coolie soon heard about it from the orderlies.

One day the C.O. asked me whether I had everything I wanted, and I said, "No, I wanted a good many things for the men, one being hot water"; but he said he had never heard of these movable boilers, and seemed to think them an unnecessary luxury.

At the sisters' camp we have a comfortable room that they use as a sitting-room, with a mixed lot of furniture that has been "commandeered" from houses in the district. The other day an officer sent us a lot of china plates taken from a Boer hotel; they were very welcome, as we were most of us using enamel plates out of our tea-baskets, &c. We have our meals in a tent—just a long table, and benches without backs.

Our sleeping tents are chiefly the big square kind, called E. P. tents; they are supposed to hold four beds, so we may have to pack tight, but at present Sister and I are alone. Some of the sisters have made their tents very nice, and have rigged up curtains to divide them. At present we use our boxes as washstand, &c., and as a General Hospital is given a certain amount of furniture for the sisters, we intend not to buy anything that is not really necessary until we see what they are going to give us.