But Pretoria was plagued with no corresponding epidemic, and possessed incomparably ampler supplies, which were drawn on without stint. In addition to the Welsh, the Yeomanry, and other canvas hospitals planted in the suburbs, the splendid Palace of Justice was requisitioned for the use of the Irish hospital, which, like several others, was fitted out and furnished by private munificence. The principal school buildings were also placed at the disposal of the medical authorities, and were promptly made serviceable with whatever requisites the town could supply. To find suitable bedding, however, for so vast a number of patients was a specially difficult task. All the rugs and tablecloths the stores of the town contained were requisitioned for this purpose; green baize and crimson baize, repp curtains and plush, anything, everything remotely suitable, was claimed and cut up to serve as quilts and counterpanes, with the result that the beds looked picturesquely, if not grotesquely, gay. One ward, into which I walked, was playfully called "The Menagerie" by the men that occupied it, for on every bed was a showy rug, and on the face of every rug was woven the figure of some fearsome beast, Bengal tigers and British lions being predominant. It was in appearance a veritable lion's den, where our men dwelt in peace like so many modern Daniels, and found not harm but health and healing there. [Sidenote: _The wear and tear of War._] In this campaign the loss of life and vigour caused by sickness was enormously larger than that accounted for by bullet wounds and bayonets. At the Orange River, just before the Guards set out on their long march, thirty Grenadier officers stretched their legs under their genial colonel's "mahogany," which consisted of rough planks supported on biscuit boxes. Of those only nine were still with us when we reached Pretoria, and of the nine several had been temporarily disabled by sickness or wounds. The battalion at starting was about a thousand strong, and afterwards received various drafts amounting to about four hundred more; but only eight hundred marched into Pretoria. The Scots Guards, however, were so singularly fortunate as not to lose a single officer during the whole campaign.