'In front is the road, from which the building is separated by iron railings. Behind there is a sort of back garden where the police and soldier servants live in tents, and where the kitchen and the bath-room are situated. This piece of ground is surrounded on three sides by a six-foot fence of corrugated iron, and the whole place is watched by a cordon of armed police, about fifteen being on duty always. The Government here generously supplies the officers with bread and water, half a pound of bully beef a day, and groceries. We have a small piece of ground and a gymnasium for exercise. As there are, alas! about fifty officers here, we have formed a sort of mess, and for the sum of three shillings a day we improve our scanty allowance of food. They have supplied us with a suit of clothes each, but mine was much too big for me. I began to write my diary this evening, and had a long talk with Garvice in my regiment, who told me how he had been captured. Dinner 7.30; bed, and sleep.
'_November_ 20*th.*--It looks as if the rest of my diary for several months would contain each day the words, "the same as usual." I have only been here forty-eight hours, but the monotony has already begun to show itself. Not the monotony only, but the want of freedom, the want of news, the knowledge that the rest of the war will be carried out without my share in its victories, when, had it not been for some unhappy fate, I might yet have seen many an action--all these combine to oppress and irritate my mind. I tried to make a sketch of the armoured train, but it was not a success, and I must begin again to-morrow. The very length of empty time in front of me makes me quite patient.
'_November_ 21*st.*--It is getting extremely hot. The lack of open space to walk in makes me feel lazy, and one gets quite tired after going a few times around the building. What one most looks forward to are the meals, and these are not very satisfying. But of course I am still suffering from the appetite of freedom, and I have no doubt that a month or so of this sort of life will make me feel less ravenous. I wrote some of my diary, and commenced another sketch of the armoured train, which I hope to be able to send to the "Graphic." Churchill has written asking to be released, but he does not expect any result. The mosquitoes here are very troublesome, and I have been constantly bitten.
