Early next morning saw us at Cathcart, where we stopped about two hours, and took the opportunity to water and feed our horses. There is a nice little inn here, and we went down in a body and indulged in delicious bread, butter, and milk. Oh, such a contrast to the same articles of diet in India! The weather at this time of the year is nearly perfect, the air being fine, dry, and invigorating; to the eye wearied by the flatness of the plains of India the undulating country, small hills and green valleys between, is very refreshing; but what strikes one, more especially in the Free State, which we marched through later, is the desolateness of the country, miles and miles of veldt dotted here and there with small houses. Cattle-farming seems to be the principal thing they go in for here, but the farmers say that, what with rinderpest and drought, it is very disheartening work. The cattle are very fine, and strike us especially coming from India, where one sees such miserable specimens. About midday we arrived at Queen’s Town, and were very much disgusted to hear that Lord Roberts had wired down that we were to detrain and go into camp, as he needed all the horse-waggons and cattle-trucks for carrying remounts (several thousands of which were collected at Queen’s Town) to troops at the front. The camp is situated about two miles from the railway station, but they have run a siding into it, so that the carriages containing ourselves and our horses were simply detached from the rest of the train and we were run into the camp. We did not take long in detraining and picketing our horses; the poor brutes were simply delighted to get on firm ground again, and when let loose indulged in all sorts of antics—rolling on the grass, kicking up their heels, and larking like colts, to show appreciation of their freedom. As our tents had not arrived yet, we were obliged to sleep out in the open; but, knowing this would be a matter of course sooner or later, we made no bones about it. Unfortunately it came on to rain at night, and this made things generally uncomfortable. The mufflers so kindly knitted for us by the ladies of Calcutta proved simply invaluable; with these, Balaclava caps, and greatcoats on, we made ourselves perfectly comfortable. There were about twelve men of the Army Service Corps stationed here, and, with the proverbial hospitality of Tommy Atkins, they very kindly supplied us with hot cocoa and coffee, and offered to put up as many as possible of us in their tents. We found several of the Queensland Mounted Volunteers encamped here, also a part of the Militia Battalion of the Cheshires awaiting marching orders like ourselves. Next day our tents arrived, and we were soon quite settled down, ten men in a tent—a bit of a squash, but all right when one gets accustomed to it.