A few days ago I went up to see Elias--Captain T. Elias, son-in-law of Dr. MacNamara, M.P.--and had tea with "C" Company, 1st London Welsh. To my amazement I discovered that Percy Davies--now Major Davies, son of Mr. David Davies, Mayor of Swansea, 1917, and editor of the _South Wales Daily Post_--was in the same village at the time. So I went along to his mess; we were overjoyed to meet one another. He introduced me to his messmates, a ripping set of chaps, who included Sir Alfred Mond's son, and one Parry, whose brother played for Dulwich, inside to Harold Gilligan, in Evans's year. Amazing coincidences, what? At the invitation of these fellows I went with them to a concert they had got up in the village. It was quite the best show of its kind I have seen out here, and there are lots of concert-parties in these parts. The Welsh have a gift of music that is peculiar to them alone. There was some first-rate singing at the concert; and a private soldier--a Tommy, mark you!--played Liszt's "No. 2 Rhapsody" and Schubert's "Marche Militaire" almost flawlessly. And the way the audience appreciated it! Then we had some first-rate comic work--really refined, not cheap and coarse--by a man whom I am sure I've seen at Llandrindod. Altogether it was a first-rate show--by miles the most interesting, intellectual, refined and capable performance I've seen out here. They have shows of various kinds every night of the week--boxing contests, trials by jury, concerts, etc. What enterprise and intelligence our countrymen have! Percy Davies himself looks after the boxing, and he made quite a telling little speech in announcing his plans for the coming week. Mond is a good chap, very jovial, boyish and unsophisticated. In fact, all these fellows are of the very best, and of outstanding intelligence. Would that I were with them! I was struck by the remarkable difference between these officers and the cavalry officers with whom I am in daily association. Each type is wholly admirable in its own way, but they have not many characteristics in common. _April 14th, 1916._