The sister in charge of our ward did not like Colonials, and made it pretty plain. She was rather a superior person who did not like to dress wounds. We were to make two stops before we arrived in England, I was told; one at Salonica to take on some sick, the other at Naples for coal. The Salonica stop took place at night. We did not go into the harbor; probably it was not deep enough for the _Aquitania_. The sick were taken aboard outside. We came to Naples early one fine Sunday morning. As we went into the harbor, I could see through the window Mt. Vesuvius, smoking steadily. We were in Naples at the same time as the big _Olympic_, and the _Mauretania_, the sister ship of the _Lusitania_. It was the time that the Germans had protested that the British hospital ships carried troops to the Dardanelles on the return trip. The neutral consuls in Naples went aboard the _Olympic_ and _Mauretania_ that Sunday and investigated. The charge, of course, was unfounded. An Italian general and his staff came aboard our ship and were shown around the wards. He was a dapper little man, who gesticulated vehemently and bowed to all the sisters. The sister who did not like Colonials was speaking to him when he came through our ward. She was trying to impress him with the excellent treatment our wounded received. She pointed out each man to him, in the same way a keeper does at the zoological gardens. "They get this every evening," she said, indicating the supper we were eating. "And what is this?" she said, looking at some apricot jam on a saucer on my bed. "Apricot jam, sister," I said, then added sweetly, in my best society fashion, "We get it every evening." I might have told her that I had had it not only every evening, but every noon and morning while I was on the Peninsula. "And what is this?" she said, pointing to the cup in my hand. "Is it tea or cocoa?" "It's tea," I said. "We get it every evening,--just as if we were human beings, and not Colonials." After that I think she liked Colonials even less. The Bay of Biscay was just a little rough when we went through it, but it did not affect the _Aquitania_ very much. When the word went around on the day that land had been sighted, every man that could hobble went on deck to get a first glimpse of England. We could not see very far because of the thick mist of an English December. About ten o'clock we were at the entrance to Southampton, but the tide was out, or the chief engineer was out, so we could not go up until that evening. That last day was a tedious one. Every one was eager to get ashore. To most of the men, England was home; and after the trenches and the hospitals, home meant much.