On Christmas Day it was good to see about twenty officers and between forty and fifty men at the early Communion Service, and we also had a service in the hospital. The saloon was quite full for the morning services at 9.15 and at 10 A.M.--there were too many for all to attend one service. Sister and I found two huge stockings on our plates at breakfast time, with all sorts of silly presents in them. We had a very pleasant day and a jolly dinner party at night. We reached Madeira that evening, and did not leave again till 2 P.M. the next day, so I had a run ashore with some people in the morning. On the 28th we anchored at Gibraltar at 8.30 A.M., and the guns thundered out such a welcome to Lord Roberts! We stayed there till 1 P.M. the next day, and I again went ashore with some friends, and had a good look round the town. Sir George White and his daughter came on board, and afterwards Lord and Lady Roberts went ashore. We had fairly good weather all the way home, but after Gibraltar the ship was rather inclined to roll; the remark on the ship's log was "fresh to moderate gale, with confused (!) sea." Two of the sisters were rather bad, so the remaining sister and I had a busy time between the sick officers and the hospital; and, though neither of us was sea-sick, I can't say that we exactly enjoyed it when we had to sponge a bad typhoid in an upper berth (to reach whom we had to stand on a box, and have a man wedged in the gangway to hold our basin of water; never quite sure whether the next roll would not oblige him to pitch all the water over either us or our patient); and the daily syringing of the arm of the officer who had the operation was just about as much as I could stand on the rough days; so we were glad when the wind abated, and all the sisters could take their turn for night duty, &c. Lord Roberts was awfully nice to me about having looked after the men on board, and he asked me whether I wanted anything he could help me with; so I told him I only wanted to be sure they would let me go back and do some more work, and not get sent to a home station; so he most kindly sent for his secretary, and asked him to write to the Director-General to say he would be obliged if my wishes on this point could be attended to. Was it not kind of him? If I had not been so surprised I should have asked to be allowed to work for the same Major again, but he was just chatting in such a kind, informal way on the deck, that I did not realise how much he could have helped me if I had thought to ask. I saw the New Year in down in the hospital, and the stokers made such a noise to celebrate it, beating with their shovels, &c. Luckily, by then, all our patients were improving, though some of them were still very ill; all except the very sick ones were tremendously excited at the thought of getting home.