The arrangements for equipping the battalion which now came more closely under my command left much to be desired, and I doubt whether the officers realised more clearly than those in authority at Home the necessity of good boots and flannel shirts in order to maintain soldiers efficient. I was obliged to buy flannel shirts for the Rank and File which cost the men 12s. each, as they had been allowed to go on service wearing cotton, and some with only one of that nature. This accounted for many having fever on the Amatolas, as the temperature varied from 75° at noon to 30° at night. [Illustration: MAP OF THE PERIE BUSH] Nor was the administration more creditable to our Military rulers. In order to economise passage money, no non-commissioned officer or soldier with less than eighteen months to complete twenty-one years, was allowed to embark, while all the recruits were sent out. Thus the Sergeants and old soldiers left at Home had nothing to do, while the officers had insufficient non-commissioned officers to help in training the recruits. Incomplete and unsatisfactory, however, as were the Regimental arrangements, they were virtually all that existed in South Africa, the Departments being represented by very few officers; and thus no sooner was I ordered to march, than I received a requisition for 5 non-commissioned officers, and selected men to form a Hospital, and 5 to form a Commissariat department. In the result this left but 7 duty Sergeants with the 5 companies of rather more than 500 men. The difficulties of crossing the numerous rivers in the journey of 500 miles exercised our patience. When the team of 16 or 18 oxen failed to pull the waggon and its load out of a river, another team of similar strength was hooked in, often with the result that one of the wheels was wrenched off by a boulder of rock which stopped the progress of the vehicle. This procedure was suitable, moreover, only when the “pull out” was fairly straight; if, as frequently happened, the gravel forming the ford was deposited on a curved line, every waggon had to be hauled out by one team assisted by manual labour, and to lift or extricate a waggon with its load equal to 6000 lbs. dead weight involved much labour. Even with comparatively easy fords the crossing of a river--for example, the Kei, between 80 and 90 yards wide, only 4 feet 6 inches deep--took five hours; the first waggon entering the water at 7.30, and the last pulling out at 3.30, the waggons taking on an average forty-five minutes to cross; and although I had arranged for a short march, we did not encamp till nearly 11 p.m. the day we crossed the river.