Our horses were thoroughly cheered up, and we passed through the long
streets of the town at a lively trot, a thing Jo was taught as a child
to consider bad form.
A semi-transparent little man in a black hat stood on the hotel steps
beckoning to us. But we had no use for hotel touts, and waved our sticks
saying, "Hospital." He seemed curiously disappointed.
The hospital, many long low buildings, lay buried in a park of trees.
The staff lived in a tiny house near by, where we were welcomed by the
cook, Mrs. Roworth. She explained that as the house was hardly capable
of holding its ten or twelve occupants, a room had been taken for us at
the inn, but that we were to meal with them.
"Not that you will like the food," she said, "for it's all tinned, and I
have only twenty-five shillings a week to buy milk, bread, and fresh
meat."
We wondered why, in such a fertile country, a party of hard-working
people should be condemned to eat tinned mackerel and vegetables brought
all the way from England?
However, the dinner was excellent--all "disguised," she said, for she
had during the few weeks she had been there concentrated on the art of
disguising bully beef and worse problems, and had sternly put Dr.
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