Time passed, the screw laboured round, and on January 12 we arrived at
Diego Suarez.
'Passengers for Lourenco Marques change steamers!'
For the _Natal_ is bound for Mauritius, along the east coast of
Madagascar. We shall therefore spend the night on shore.
Wandering about the town, we meet Colonel Gourko, whom we invite to
dinner, as we are in a French colony. I can't pride myself much on this
meal, in the name of French culinary art.
The next day I lighted on a quartermaster of the Marine Artillery, whom
I had known in the Soudan when he was only a gunner. He went off to
find the other Soudanese campaigners of the settlement, and in a quarter
of an hour I was surrounded by half a dozen old comrades. They were all
in high spirits, for it had been a day of promotions, and several of
them were toasting their new stripes.
I spend a full hour with them, recalling the old days spent in the
colony that all who have once known regret.
The hour of parting draws near; several subalterns return to their
duties, while my old friend and a newly-promoted officer come to see me
off.
The _Gironde_, also of the Messageries Maritimes, plies from Diego
Suarez to Durban and _vice versa_. Several artillery and marine
officers, having heard of my presence, have come to wish me godspeed on
board. I am much touched at this token of sympathy from unknown
friends, for, setting my humble personality aside, it is a homage to the
noble cause I am on my way to uphold.
But the bell rings, the anchor is weighed, and we are off. If the
_Natal_ was an old 'fine steamer,' the _Gironde_ is a _very_ old one.
She was formerly one of the swift and elegant Indian liners, but now,
obsolete and worn-out, is reserved for this little auxiliary service
till such time as some sudden squall shall send her to the bottom.
Nevertheless, we arrived safely at Mozambique, where some few days
before a terrible cyclone had destroyed part of the native village. Huts
were overthrown and lying in fragments, trees torn up by the roots,
telegraph-wires broken; an air of mournful desolation hung over the
district.
Meanwhile, the buxom negresses of the quarter went about their daily
work, apparently unmoved at the ruin of their dwellings.
We pay a visit to the fort, a very curious sight, with its mediaeval
battlements bristling with cannon two hundred years old, and its
soldiers armed with flintlock muskets. All these excellent Portuguese
warriors seem to be impressed by a sense of their lofty mission. They
even demurred a little before admitting us into their 'citadel.'
We take up the Archbishop of Mozambique, I believe; he is brought on
board by a military launch, with all the honours due to his rank, and
saluted by the guns of the fort.
We leave Mozambique the same evening.
Every day there were superb sunsets, glories of deep purple, blue,
blazing red, green, yellow and pink, vivid pieces of impressionism that
beggar description.
Thus, still avoiding shipwreck, we come to Beira, where we land our
prelate, who is received by a numerous staff of officers; troops line
the quays, and salutes are fired!
Portugal has certainly a remarkable colonial army. Among the others
there is a huge captain, bursting out of his tunic. Each of his long
commands, incomprehensible to me, seems to produce consternation in his
troop, followed by a series of perfectly diverse manoeuvres.
We turn away that we may avoid laughing aloud, for the moment is a
serious one... Two or three trombones attack the Portuguese national
air. A good many of the worthy soldiers have shouldered arms, and the
majority have presented them.... His lordship passes. He gets into a
little 'lorry' pushed by natives, and goes off quickly, while the troops
disperse. They are worthy of those I have several times seen at Lisbon.
I think if I were the Portuguese I would prefer none at all to such as
these.... And, then, the suppression of the military budget would
perhaps enable them to pay their dividends. In the afternoon we embark a
band of Englishmen coming from Rhodesia to enlist as volunteers at
Durban and Cape Town. They invade the saloon with their friends, and
sing 'God save the Queen.' Some of the Frenchmen present retort with
the Marseillaise; the situation becomes strained, fists are clenched,
and finally a certain number of blows are exchanged. We have on board a
grandson of President Kruger's, whose home is in Holland. After having
been arrested once, conducted to Durban and sent back to Europe, he is
making a second attempt to enter his country. Thanks to a strict
incognito, only laid aside for two of us, he succeeds in his design.
At night we arrive off Lourenco Marques, where, without let or
hindrance, we disembark on January 21.
We order a bottle of Moet in the saloon to drink the health of Captain
B----, whom we are leaving, and against whom we are going to fight
presently.
'Your good health,' he says, 'and I trust we shan't meet later on!'
We part with a hearty shake of the hand. At the Custom-house we easily
get our artistically-concealed revolvers through, but the Customs
officers fall upon the uniforms, arms and harness belonging to Colonel
Gourko. They decline to pass anything, in spite of all explanations.
The Colonel is obliged to go and fetch the Russian Consul and the
Governor. We take up our quarters at the Hotel Continental, which, we
are told, is the best. Five of us are packed into one small room on
improvised beds, where we are devoured by mosquitoes ... and this costs
fourteen shillings a day!
Colonel Gourko, having recovered his baggage, joins us there, and, in
his turn, invites us to dinner. He does things in a princely fashion,
and the bill must have been one that Paillard himself would have
hesitated to present.
All sorts of obstacles are invented to prevent our departure. Firstly,
of course, our passports have to be _vise_, but before this can be done
we have to get stamps, which are only to be had at the opposite end of
the town; we have, further, to produce a certificate of good conduct
(having only arrived the night before!). Then more stamps, then a note
from the French Consul, then more stamps; and the office where you get
the signature or the paper is never the same as the one that sells the
stamps.
At last all formalities have been carried out. Our pockets are bulging
with some dozen papers covered with innumerable signatures and a shower
of stamps. Cost: over 50 francs--10,850 reis!
We go to the station at seven o'clock the following morning. There are
a great many police officers on duty. By the Governor's orders no one
is to be allowed to start for the Transvaal with the exception of the
Russian ambulance. We all exclaim shrilly, and hurry off to the Consul.
Upon our formal declaration that this order will injure us in our
business, he proceeds to the Governor and remonstrates, with the result
that we are authorized to start next morning, there being only one train
a day.
We spend the day wandering about the town, which is of little interest.
The great square planted with trees is pleasant, however.
We see the funeral procession of an officer of the English man-of-war
stationed here. The coffin, covered with the Union Jack, is placed on a
little gun-carriage drawn by sailors; others line the way. Officers in
full uniform follow, and a company of red-coats bring up the rear.
This is our last encounter with the 'soldiers of the Queen' before we
open fire upon them. They are already numerous in South Africa, and
every day brings reinforcements.
At the beginning of hostilities there were about 25,000 men distributed
over Natal and Cape Colony. From November 9 to January 1 seventy-eight
transports have brought 70,000 men, completing the fifth division;
15,000 volunteers have been raised on the spot, making in all 110,000
men.
The sixth and seventh divisions, a contribution from the colonies, will
bring them up to 22,000; 3,000 yeomanry and 7,000 militiamen will
complete the total of 152,000 promised for the month of February. The
seventh division started from January 4 to January 11, bringing nearly
10,000 men and eighteen cannon.
Engagements at the rate of 3,600 francs (L124) are being made on every
side--1,600 (L64) on enlistment, 2,000 francs (L80) at the end of the
war. Enlistments in our Foreign Legion are affected and fall off
considerably.
The City of London, by means of a public subscription of L100,000,
raises a corps of volunteers. This desperate system of enlistment is
severely criticised, even in England.
'What a humiliation,' says Mr. Frederick Greenwood in the _Westminster
Gazette_ of January 2, 'to have to cry Help! help! at every crossway to
pick up a man or a horse.'
Seventeen new battalions are to be raised after January 15. The choice
of men rests with the colonel or the lieutenant-colonel commanding the
regimental district. They are required to be aged from twenty to
thirty-five, to have gone through a course of instruction in 1898 or
1899, and to hold a certificate of proficiency in shooting. But, as a
fact, many of these certificates are given by favour, and a third of the
volunteers are from eighteen to twenty years old. The effort made by
the country has been considerable.
On January 19 the eighth division was mobilized. It comprised the
sixteenth and seventeenth brigades under the command of Major-Generals
B. Campbell and J. E. Boyes; Batteries 89, 90, and 91, and the 5th
company of Engineers, making a strength of 10,540 men, 1,548 horses,
eighteen cannon, and eight machine guns.
The eighth division is under the command of General H. M. L. Rundle,
aged forty-four, who has already served in the Zulu campaign, at the
siege of Potchefstroom in the Transvaal in 1881, and in the Egyptian and
Soudanese campaigns from 1884 to 1898.