With Methuens Column on an Ambulance Train | Page 2

country house opens his eyes with wonder when he receives
a warm invitation from a colonial to spend a month with him at his
house on the Karroo. And such invitations, unlike those which the
Oriental traveller receives, are uttered in earnest and meant to be
accepted.
Capetown is by far the most cosmopolitan of all our colonial capitals.
Englishmen, Dutchmen, Jews, Kaffirs, "Cape boys" and Malays bustle
about the streets conversing in five or six different languages. There is
a delightful freedom from conventionalism in the matter of dress. At
one moment you meet a man in a black or white silk hat, at another a
grinning Kaffir bears down upon you with the costume of a scarecrow;
you next pass a couple of dignified Malays with long silken robes and

the inevitable tarbush, volubly chattering in Dutch or even Arabic.
These Malays form a particularly interesting section of the population.
They are largely the descendants of Oriental slaves owned by the Dutch,
and, of course, preserve their Moslem faith, though some of its external
observances, _e.g._, the veiling of women, have ceased to be observed.
I did my best during a few days' stay at Somerset West to witness one
of their great festivals called "El Khalifa". At this feast some devotees
cut themselves with knives until the blood pours from the wounds, and
a friend of mine who had witnessed the performance on one occasion
seemed to think that in some cases the wounding and bleeding were not
really objective facts, but represented to the audience by a species of
hypnotic suggestion. As, however, my visit to Somerset West took
place during the month of Ramazan there was no opportunity of
witnessing the "Khalifa," which would be celebrated during Bairam,
the month of rejoicing which amongst Moslems all the world over
succeeds the self-mortifications of Ramazan. Even if their external
observances of the usages of Islam seem somewhat lax, the Cape
Moslems, I found, faithfully observe the month of abstinence, and I
remember talking to a most intelligent Malay boy, who was working
hard as a mason in the full glare of the midday heat, and was touching
neither food nor drink from sunrise to sunset.
All around were signs and tokens of the war. Large transports lay
gently rolling upon the swell in every direction, and it was said that not
less than sixty ships were lying at anchor together in the bay. H.M.S.
Niobe and Doris faced the town, and further off was stationed the
Penelope, which had already received its earlier contingents of Boer
prisoners. It is very difficult, by the way, to understand how some of
these captives contrived later on to escape by swimming to the shore,
for, apart from the question of sharks, the distance to the beach was
considerable.
On land the whole aspect of the streets was changed. Every few yards
one met men in khaki and putties. This cloth looks fairly smart when it
is new and the buttons and badges are burnished; but, after a very few
weeks at the front, khaki uniforms become as shabby as possible. No
one who is going into the firing line has any wish to draw the enemy's
fire by the glint of his buttons or his shoulder-badges, and so these are
either removed or left to tarnish. Nor does khaki--at any rate the "drill"

variety--improve its beauty by being washed. When one has bargained
with a Kaffir lady to wash one's suit for ninepence it comes back with
all the glory of its russet brown departed and a sort of limp, anæmic
look about it. And when the wearer has lain upon the veldt at full
length for long hours together in rain and sun and dust-storm his kit
assumes an inexpressible dowdiness, and preserves only its one
superlative merit of so far resembling mother earth that even the keen
eyes behind the Mauser barrels fail to spot Mr. Atkins as he lies prone
behind his stone or anthill.
As our lumbering cab drove up Adderley Street to the hotel a squadron
of the newly raised South African Light Horse rode past. The men
looked very jaunty and well set up with their neat uniforms, bandoliers
and "smasher" hats with black cocks' feathers. There has never been the
slightest difficulty in raising these irregular bodies of mounted infantry.
The doors of their office in Atkinson's Buildings were besieged by a
crowd of applicants--very many of them young men who had arrived
from England for the purpose of joining. A certain amount of perfectly
good-humoured banter was levelled against these brand-new soldiers
by their friends, and some fun poked at them about their riding.
Occasionally, for instance, a few troopers were unhorsed during parade
and the riderless steeds trotted along the public road