Having inspected our transport, the Army Service Corps officers at Cape Town approved of our carts, and reported favourably on them to Lord Roberts; but at the same time stated that they considered a team of two ponies inadequate to draw the load we had designed through sandy tracts, and suggested two leaders to each cart, an increase of 200 lb. in the load, and a decrease in the number of carts. The Chief of the Staff having approved of this suggestion, we handed over to the military authorities twenty ponies (not our best) and ten carts, and harness complete, receiving in exchange seventy-six mules, with harness, and twelve Cape boys to assist as drivers, so that when B Company arrives our united transport establishment will consist of thirty-six carts and two water-carts, with two mules as wheelers and two ponies as leaders to each cart, and there is little doubt that we are as well provided with transport as any troops in the field—indeed, much better than most. The Remount Department in Cape Town were very good to us, and replaced not only our losses on the voyage, but a number of horses which on landing appeared unfit for service, giving us in all twenty-four chargers. The animals cast in Cape Town were old and unlikely to get into condition for a long time, if ever they did so. Our Calcutta purchases and horses brought by troopers themselves are nearly all doing well. In place of those we had lost on the voyage—six or seven altogether—Government gave us thirteen fine Australian cobs, which were told off as remounts for the Ceylon Contingent. But, the latter having been mounted in the meantime by the military authorities and sent to the front, their horses were very properly handed over to us. In Cape Town we found it necessary to make several purchases to supplement equipment and replace losses. These consisted of grass nets and picketing pegs for the horses, and _vel-schoen_ and canvas water-bags for the men; besides stores amounting in all to about 150_l._ worth.