PINETOWN, NATAL, _April 1900_. You must not expect me to tell you anything about the progress of the war; the papers here give us very little news; of course we are constantly hearing many startling rumours, but they are frequently contradicted the next day, and probably you have more reliable news of the doings of our troops in your papers at home than we have. So I will just jot down things about our daily work here. We are getting into order by degrees, but at present life is rather a struggle against difficulties. You see we are not quite a Civil Hospital, nor are we quite a Military Hospital; for the 100 beds we brought out we were well equipped, and had many more comforts than a Military Hospital would have been provided with, but now we are to have 200 beds, and our resources are somewhat strained. I found that the mess waiter was in his shirt sleeves because the poor man had been nursing a case of scarlet fever on board ship, and all his kit had to be burnt, so I fitted him up in some pyjama coats to wait at table, until I could get time to go in to Durban and buy him some white drill jackets. After a few days' work at unpacking, we got quite civilised in our room fittings, and sent for the other sisters to come up and help. If there had not been such need for hurry in getting the place ready, it would really have been very amusing; much of the furniture had been a good deal damaged on the way, and we all tried our hands at mending--to see our senior surgeon (who is on the staff of a large hospital in England) sitting on the ground trying to fit a leg on to a washstand, or to make a drawer run into a chest of drawers, is a fine sight; I have taken a few snaps with my kodak of the staff in unprofessional garb, and doing unprofessional jobs. I hope they will come out all right, but I don't see much prospect of having time to develop them. The theatre is fitted up, but has not been used yet, and Mr. ---- is working hard getting the X-Ray room into order, and his apparatus fixed up. Our food supplies (always called "skoff" here--the Kaffirs' name for food) were very erratic at first. Sometimes no meat would turn up, and then we made shift with bully-beef, which is really quite good, or sardines; sometimes no bread, then we used the barrel of biscuits that lived in the mess-room--you have no idea how difficult it is to eat enough of those biscuits to satisfy you (they are nearly as hard as dog biscuits!), and in about half-an-hour you feel starving again; sometimes there is no butter--then marmalade. Now things are coming up more regularly, and I hope they will continue to do so, as it is easy for us to joke about short commons for ourselves, but it is no joke when you have sick men needing careful feeding up.