With Methuens Column on an Ambulance Train | Page 3

at Rosebank. But
certainly the tests of horsemanship were severe. Many of the horses
supplied by Government were very wild and sometimes behaved like
professional buckjumpers; and it is no easy task to control the eccentric
and unexpected gyrations of such a beast when the rider is encumbered
with the management of a heavy Lee-Metford rifle. Since the day on
which I first saw the squadron in question it has passed through its
baptism of fire at Colenso. The Light Horse advanced on the right of
Colonel Long's ill-fated batteries, and was cruelly cut up by a
murderous fire from Hlangwane Hill.
Capetown is not well furnished with places of amusement. There is, it
is true, a roomy theatre, whose manager, Mr. de Jong, sent an invitation
to the staff of the "Pink 'Un" to dine with him and his friends at Pretoria
on New Year's Day! How the Boers must have laughed when they read
of this cordial invitation! During the few days which elapsed before our
ambulance train started for the front we paid a visit to the theatre, but
we found the stage tenanted by a "Lilliputian Company," and it is

always tiresome and distressing to watch precocious children of twelve
aping their elders. One feels all the time that the whole performance
scarcely rises above an exhibition of highly-trained cats or monkeys,
and that the poor mites ought all to be in bed long ago. Nevertheless,
this dreary theatre was, in default of anything better, visited again and
again by British officers and others. A friend of mine in the Guards told
me with a sigh that he had actually watched the performances of these
accomplished infants for no less than seven nights.
There are several music halls in Capetown. I have visited similar
entertainments in Constantinople, Cairo, Beyrout and other towns of
the East, but I never saw anything to match some of these Capetown
haunts for out-and-out vulgarity. There was, it is true, a general air of
"patriotism" pervading them--but it was frequently the sort of
patriotism which consists in getting drunk and singing "Soldiers of the
Queen". On one occasion I remember a curious and typical incident at
one of these music halls. Standing among a crowd of drunken and
half-drunken men was a quiet and respectable-looking man drinking his
glass of beer from the counter. One of the _habitués_ of the place
suddenly addressed him, and demanded with an oath whether he had
ever heard so good a song as the low ditty which had just been
screamed out by a painted woman on the stage. The stranger remarked
quietly that it "wasn't a bad song, but he had certainly heard better
ones," when the bully in front without any warning struck him a violent
blow in the face, felling him to the ground. A comrade of mine, a
Welshman, who was standing near the victim, protested against such
cowardly behaviour, and was immediately set upon by some dozen of
the audience, who savagely knocked him down and then drove him into
the street with kicks and blows. These valiant individuals then returned
and were soon busy with a hiccuping chorus of "Rule, Britannia". How
forcibly the whole scene recalled Dr. Johnson's words: "Patriotism, sir,
is the last resort of a scoundrel".
The Uitlander refugees were numerous in Capetown, and the principal
hotels were full of them. Those whom I happened to meet did not seem
at all overwhelmed by their recent oppression, and some of them
contrived out of their shattered fortunes to drink champagne for dinner
at a guinea a bottle. I do not think that the average Johannesburg
Uitlander impresses the Englishman very favourably. Mining camps

are not the best nurseries for good breeding or nobility of character, and
one could not help feeling sorry that gallant Englishmen were dying by
hundreds while some of these German Jews wallowed in security and
luxury. Quite recently an officer overheard a "Jew-boy" loudly
declaring in a shop that "after all, British soldiers were paid to go out
and get shot," etc., and in a fit of righteous indignation the Englishman
seized the Semite and threw him out of the door.
English visitors to the Cape who, like myself, wished to contribute our
humble share towards the work of the campaign had several directions
in which to utilise their energies. The Prince Alfred's Field Artillery
was raising recruits, and on the point of leaving for the front for the
defence of De Aar. The Duke of Edinburgh's Rifle Volunteers enlisted
men on Thursday, drilled them day and night, and sent them off on the
Tuesday. This fine corps has, much to its vexation, been almost
continuously employed in guarding lines of communication and
protecting bridges and culverts from any violence at the hands of