One novel sight I saw in the interminable monotony of desert veldt.  For a whole afternoon there were mirages all along the horizon, a chain of enchanted lakes on either side, on which you could imagine piers, and boats, and wooded islands.

At Beaufort West we dropped our “boys,” the Kaffir mule-drivers; they left us in a great hubbub of laughing and shouting, with visions before them, I expect, of a golden age, based on their accumulated wealth of high pay.  We passed Piquetberg Road about midnight of October 6th.  Plumbley, the store-keeper, was there, and the belle of the village was holding a moonlight levee at the end of the train.  There was a temporary clear from the rain here, but it soon thickened down again.  When we steamed away I climbed out on the buffers (the only way of getting a view), and had a last look at the valley, which our wheels had scored in so many directions.  Tulbagh Pass, Bushman’s Rock, and the hills behind it were looking ghostly through a humid, luminous mist; but my posture was not conducive to sentimentality, as any one who tries it will agree; so I climbed back to my island, and read myself to sleep by a candle, while we clattered and jolted on into the night.

When I woke at dawn on October 7th we were standing in a siding at the Capetown docks, the rain coming down in torrents, and Table Mountain blotted out in clouds.  Collecting our kit from sopping crannies and corners, we packed it and paraded at six, and marched off to the quay, where the Aurania, our homeward transport, lay.  Here we gave in revolvers, carbines, blankets, etc., were split up into messes, and, after much waiting, filed off into the fore part of the ship, descended a noisome-smelling funnel by an iron staircase, and found ourselves on the troop-deck, very similar to that of the Montfort, only likely to be much more crowded; the same low ceiling, with cross-rafters for kit and hooks for hammocks, and close-packed tables on either side.

More C.I.V. had arrived, and the quays were swarming with soldiers and civilians.  Williams had decided to stay and see something of Capetown, and was now to get his discharge.  There were a few others doing so also.  He was discharged in form, and drove away to the Mount Nelson Hotel, returning later disguised as a civilian, in a long mackintosh (over his uniform), a scarf, and a villainous-looking cap; looking, as he said, like a seedy Johannesburg refugee.  But he was free!  The Manager of his hotel, which, I believe, is the smartest in South Africa, had looked askance at his luggage, which consisted of an oat-sack, bulging with things, and a disreputable-looking bundle.