Now it should be known that the one great day on a long voyage is that on which one gets money and leave for twenty-four hours. It was looked forward to most keenly, and afterwards served as a topic of conversation until long afterwards. This particular leave was no exception to the rule, and as I have not visited Colombo since I shall always remember it for its intense beauty. There is only one place with which I can compare it for beauty, and that is Rio. The luxuriant vegetation made it appear as a sort of paradise to men who had been cooped up in a small craft for months past. I suppose we amused ourselves pretty much the same as sailors on shore usually do. We chartered a conveyance and drove out into the country, we bathed in a fresh-water lake, and generally disported ourselves like a lot of overgrown school-boys, but on return to town, in some way or other we made the acquaintance of certain bandsmen of the 25th Regiment and found them very good fellows. They did their best to do the honours of the place, and succeeded very much to our satisfaction. A dinner in the evening in an open-air corridor attached to a big hotel completed my enchantment, and I wanted to stay there and enlist in the “Borderers.” My particular friend (by this time), a bandsman named Hibbert, with a view to giving effect to this suggested that I should meet him after the officers’ mess, when he would be free and would put me in the way of doing so. I sat outside the officers’ mess on the other side of the street and envied them. Eventually I was taken to a Sergeant Sinclair, who invited me to his quarters and put me up for the night. I like to put this action on record as typical of the kindness shown by men of the services to youngsters when they get a little adrift. Before I turned in, in a spotlessly clean bed which was a change indeed from my usual quarters, he discovered that he had served in the 92nd under a cousin of mine for whom he had the greatest respect and regard. Next morning he said to me: “If I enlist you I shall get so much bounty (I forget how much), but for your own sake I think you had better go back to your ship. You very likely would work up to a commission, but go home and see your friends before altering the idea of your life.” Whether that was good advice or not I cannot say. Anyhow I took it, and retain a grateful remembrance of the Sergeant’s kindness. So it was back to the mill once more, and an end of all the pleasant things that had been so tantalisingly held in view, back to the daily round, the wretched food, and the discomfort of poor quarters in hot weather with no chance of more shore leave. Our cargo was being stowed by a gang of natives who lived on board at the fore end of the ship. We took the bags in, they stowed them, and a specially beautiful lot of coffee that was, in fact a rare consignment. Every possible care was taken in its stowage, and no precaution was neglected to ensure its safe carriage to its destination.