The _Victorian_ is rather a grubby boat--a cattle-boat when she is at home. There are two hundred Boer prisoners on board, going up to a place near Ladysmith; four of them are officers, who are berthed on the upper deck, but don't mess with us. They seem quite a superior sort (one of them was a Commandant), and they are very polite to us, always ready to move our chairs, or to do anything to help us. There are about twenty officers in the saloon, and one officer's wife. The ship is not accustomed to having any ladies on board, but every one is very good to us, and the stewards are most attentive (there is no stewardess). I sit next to the C.O., a Colonel from Australia, who had had a bad fall from his horse, and is going back to Australia for the voyage to recruit (this boat is going to take time-expired men from Durban to Australia, and will return with a full load of men and horses from there); he and his son have both been fighting out here. Just lately he has been a patient in the hospital where we have been lodging, and he speaks very plainly about the bad management there, after he had been very well nursed in another hospital up-country. There is a very pleasant, and very Irish, R.A.M.C. Major in medical charge. He has had a rough time trekking about with his regiment for the last fifteen months, and is now going for the trip to Australia to recruit after fever; he wants us to go with him, as they will probably send a couple of sisters, and we already have the promise of "a good time" in Australia while the ship is there; Sister says she would like to go, but I would like to see this show through first. The officer's wife has been in her cabin sea-sick all the way, so we have had to look after her a bit. It has been a little rough, but even Sister ---- has kept well--we conclude because we had been doing a compulsory fast in consequence of the bad feeding at Wynberg before we came on board! We should have thought the feeding on this boat very poor after the _Canada_, but it is first rate after Wynberg. We shall soon be at Durban now, and then they say we may have to be quarantined outside for ten days (on account of the plague at the Cape), but we hope our services may be so urgently required at the front that they may forget to quarantine us! XLII 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.