At 7 a.m. on October 5th, in rough and foggy weather, the _Sutlej_
arrived off the coast of Africa, and the fog lifting about midday, she
ran down the coastline for two hours, and arrived outside the bar at
Durban.

The ships conveying the 60th Rifles and the 53rd Battery arrived an hour
later. The _Sutlej_ waited till 2 p.m. to enter the harbour, and arrived
alongside the quay at 4 p.m., when disembarkation commenced at once in
torrents of rain and heavy wind squalls.

A deputation of the Durban "West of England" Association met the
Regiment on arrival and presented an address.

The first news received on landing was that war had not yet been
declared, but that it was inevitable, that President Kruger had seized
half a million of money on its way from Johannesburg to the Cape, and
that orders had been given by him to shoot any one crossing the
frontier. This may or may not have been true; a good deal of _perfectly
reliable_ information was being circulated about this time.

On the night of October 5th-6th the Regiment left in three trains for
Ladysmith. The rain and cold caused some inconvenience to the men, as
they were packed into open trucks, and obtained neither shelter nor
sleep. They were new to the game then, but they saw the inside of many a
coal truck later.

The journey to Pietermaritzburg was in the nature of a triumphal
procession, for at various points along the line small knots of old men
women and children, waving Union Jacks, cheered the troops most lustily