In the country behind us, there were many Chinese Labour Companies and one of Zulus. When not at work, they were encamped in large compounds surrounded by barbed wire. Our band used to play occasionally for the entertainment of the Chinese, who very much enjoyed both the music and the compliment that was paid to them by its being provided. On one occasion, I went with General Thacker to visit one of the Chinese Labour Companies. The officer in charge wished us to see some of their sports, and so we sat on chairs at the top of the field and the Chinamen came up and gave us an exhibition of their skill in something that looked like fencing. They used sticks for foils. We could not quite see who won in the encounter, or what constituted the finishing stroke, but, as soon as each pair of performers retired they turned and bowed solemnly to the General and made way for two other combatants. They were great powerful men, very different from the type of Chinese one sees in this country. One of the performers we were told by the O.C., could carry a weight of five hundred pounds on his shoulders. After the gymnastic performance, we had a concert, and a man sang, or rather made a hideous nasal sound, to the accompaniment of something that looked like a three stringed fiddle. The song, which greatly delighted the Chinese listeners, consisted of an interminable number of verses; in fact we never heard the end of it, for the O.C. stopped it and told the musicians that the officers had to leave. He told us that the men were well behaved, and that only once had he had occasion to hold a court-martial. The Zulus were encamped near Ranchicourt. They too were a stalwart (p. 193) lot of men, but felt the cold of the winter very much. I was riding past them in the road one day and spoke to the British sergeant in charge of them. He pointed out one young man who, he said, was the son of a chief, and, in his own country, was entitled to a body-guard of fifteen men. In recognition, therefore, of his aristocratic birth, he was allowed to wear three stripes. While we were talking, the boy looked round and saw that we were speaking about him. The sergeant called out something to him in Zulu language, and the boy smiled and nodded to me. I asked the sergeant what he had said to him. He replied: "I told him that you thought you had met him before, and it pleased him." This accounted for the boy's smiling at me and the nod of recognition. I suppose he thought that on some occasion in my rambles through Africa we had met in the jungle. At any rate, I admired the sergeant's tact and savoir faire. There was a great mixture of races among the allied forces in France, and I always felt sorry for the poor heathen that they should be dragged into the war of the Christian nations.