Ruling passions are strong even when one is at death’s door, and I cannot help recalling a sporting bet I had with my kind friend Sister Alma. It took the usual shape of a bet with a woman—gloves—and I laid her a dozen pairs to nothing that the war would be over by Christmas, which not only I but many high in authority fully believed it would. We were passing Durban on our way back to India during the second week in December, and, taking the then situation, I looked upon my bet as lost and bailed up. One of my subalterns, who was landing there to return to the seat of war, kindly carried out my commission, and forwarded the gloves to the winner, from whom I received a prompt acknowledgment, with the usual remark that women are always right, and I believe they are! At least, I never attempt to contradict them, and yet I am a bachelor. Colonel Lumsden being in hospital, and debarred, therefore, to his regret, from leading the corps in a march for which it had already been detailed, Major Chamney took temporary command, and a few days later received orders to hand over horses and proceed by train to rejoin the other detachment under Captain Beresford at Machadodorp. This uneventful stage of the campaign is thus described by the correspondent of an Indian paper serving with Lumsden’s Horse: Prior to this the Imperial Light Horse had left Mahon’s brigade, and we heard that they too expected to be disbanded shortly. General Mahon made them a speech before they left, praising them highly for the good work they had done while with him, and saying how sorry he was to part with them. On October 1 we handed over nearly all our horses to the New Zealanders, keeping only such of them—four or five, if I remember right—as had been brought from India and come right through the whole show. Four others also were kept for the doctor’s cart, the horses he had before being played out. But the experiment did not turn out a success, as the first time they were put into harness they bolted and there was a general smash-up. The leaders broke away and vanished into space, and were never seen by us again; and the wheelers got mixed up in the traces and upset the cart, damaging it hopelessly in their struggles to get free. The doctor was thenceforth cartless, I think, and the implements of his trade had to be carried in one of the Transport carts.