in one case, where a patient insisted that his nurse was a Chinese pirate, and behaved accordingly, but she gave her charge the same excellent attention as before.  At this time I began to be troubled with the pangs of a great hunger.  After subsisting for five weeks on milk alone, my food diet began with small doses of cornflour and with large doses of castor oil, but at last there came a chicken.  I shall never forget that first chicken, nor the nurse who brought it to me.  How I tore those bones—­of the chicken, not the nurse—­apart, and how I attacked them in my fingers so that I should not leave any of the good meat.  Eventually my bed in the medical ward was required for a more serious case than myself, and I was sufficiently well to be returned to the private ward for a few days of convalescence.  The patients here were certainly more companionable than in the medical ward, and they suffered from less grave complaints.  They were for the most part victims of accidents, and were all nearly well enough to leave the hospital.  In the evenings we generally had some sort of amusement among ourselves.  The piece de resistance was more often than not a wrestling match between the man with the amputated foot and the man who had undergone an operation for sciatica.  As both performers were in ordinary circumstances compelled to use crutches, their efforts were distinctly humorous.

It was after two months of medical treatment that I was able to leave the British Hospital, and it was only when on the point of leaving that I realised what we Britishers owe to this institution.

The building itself is constructed on the most approved designs, it is fitted with every modern appliance, both medical and surgical; the treatment is excellent, the percentage of cures remarkable—­not a single case has been lost in the medical ward during the current year; the doctors are not only experienced, but efficient; and finally, the nurses—­but perhaps I have already dwelt with sufficient emphasis on their virtues.

All the same, thank Heaven I return to camp in a week, and may fate deal more kindly with me in the future.

“THE TACURU.”

“THE TACURU.”

PATRON SAINT:  GEORGE WASHINGTON.

No. 1.

Saturday, March 26th, 1910.

When we consider the already overstocked journalistic world, and remember the innumerable papers and magazines which greet one at every street corner and nestle in every armchair, we feel that an apology is due to our readers (if any) for our temerity in swelling the overflow of periodicals, but let us assure you our reasons for putting another paper on the market are purely altruistic.  It is no idea of mere gain, or even a desire for notoriety that urges us to issue “The Tacuru”; we have undertaken this responsibility because we know that the world would be the loser did we refuse to give to the public the highly scientific impressions formed by an extraordinarily