Green Point Camp
Cape Town
14 April, 1900

Dear Mother,

By the time this gets to you, I think you will be wondering what has become of us, altho' you will always know by the papers where the corps is. We got in here a week ago, & I have been so busy since that I couldn't get a line written. I have only a few minutes twilight now & we have no lights in the tents. We did not touch at Cape Verde Islands as I expected when I wrote the letter dated Mar. 26th. We had nothing more eventful on the voyage except that one evening the alarm of fire was given & all the men fell in ready for the boats; it only turned out to be one of the deck brakehouses & was soon extinguished. We lost 160 horses altogether on the voyage, through influenza. We expected to start for the front tomorrow, but now we have been quarantined on account of the disease among our horses & we don't know when we will be going. This is the prettiest town I ever was in. The avenues & gardens are beautiful & some of the buildings are grand. Everything is in English style, & it took us quite a while to get onto the way of the LSD [?]. There are a number of Boer prisoners imprisoned in the centre of the camp.

Things in general are pretty dear here, with a few exceptions such as fruit etc. Our first mail came in last night, a letter from Stan & Charlie had one from Tommy Hiscock [?]. The ship we came over on is a Jarrow bull boar & several of the crew were Tynesiders.

The news from the front has been most encouraging the last few days, several reports having come in of big captures by Roberts & Kitchener. The climate here at this time of the year is very nice. The sun is pretty warm but as we are camped right by the beach, the sea breezes keep it nice and cool. The town is very prettily situated, lying in the shape of a crescent round the foot of Table Mountain, which in itself is worth seeing.

There is a great mixture of nationalities here, also the different uniforms. If you walk down the main street at night you will see the uniform of nearly every regiment in the British Army, even including the native troops from India with their great big turbans stuck on their heads. There are quite a few Boer sympathizers around here who keep trying to make their presence felt. They even went so far the other night as to raise the Boer flag on one end of Table Mountain right over one end of town & an officer & detachment had to be sent to take it down.

I will have to close now. Remember me to the Blakes, Mugfords & all the rest of the people & tell them I am sorry not to have the time to write to them. So with love to yourself & the boys, dear Mother,

Your affectionate son,

Bert