During the services of the 1st Battalion at the Cape of Good Hope, five companies of the regiment, under the command of Brevet Major Summerfield, were ordered to proceed to the frontier of Africa, in consequence of a revolt of a great number of Boers and Hottentots, joined with the Caffres. This detachment landed at Algoa Bay, and on its disembarkation proceeded to Graaff Reinet, on the banks of Sunday’s River, being a march of 350 miles, through a barren country.

‘Nothing easier, then. We’ll proceed to make their acquaintance. See what a lot of cads climbing up and sitting on the wall, obstructing the view there! First, seat yourself firmly on the top the same as they do; then, proceed to knock off the other intruders, as if you belonged to the party by invitation; finally, slip over quietly inside, and mix with the lot exactly as if you really knew them. There is such a precious crowd of people inside, that nobody’ll ever find out you weren’t invited.

During Friday, Captain Weed and Mr. Howell searched the cabin of the sloop, and found in the captain’s berth a clean linen coat and a clean shirt, both neatly folded up, and each of them cut through the folds as if with a sharp knife. The coat had a sharp, clean cut, about seven inches long, through every fold; the shirt had some shorter cuts in it. They ascertained that an auger, which lay on the cabin floor, had been used to bore two holes immediately behind the stove.

The village of Ealing lies on the northern and southern sides of the Uxbridge Road, and is distant about seven miles west from where once stood Tyburn Turnpike. The Parish of Ealing is not mentioned in Domesday Book but was probably then comprised within the manor of Fulham. It is within the Hundred of Ossulstone and the County of Middlesex and in the Diocese of London. Its eastern boundaries are,Chiswick, Acton and Twyford; its western, New Brentford, Hanwell, and Greenford; its northern the river Brent, Harrow and Perivale; its southern, the Thames.

There are many charities, more noble monuments of the dead then ought ever graved by the sculptor’s art. The chief of these are John Bowman’s Charity (1612) for such goodly and charitable uses as the officers thereof for the time being shall deem meet and convenient; Richard and Mary Need’s, a Brentford Charity; Richard Taylor’s and Lady Capell’s Bequest, by which one-twelfth part of the income of an estate in Kent, called Perry-court Farm was given in 1721 by the will of the Rt. Hon. Dorothy Dowager Lady Capell, for the support of the Charity School of Ealing.

The worst tragedy which occurred during my stay in the prison was the deliberate murder of Minnie Eddy. When I entered in February, Minnie had already been there a number of months. She struggled valiantly with the task, which she seemed unable to master. To avoid punishment, she used every cent her sister sent her to hire the task. In November, 1918, she began to complain of pain in her head and throat. She went to the doctor, but he ordered her back to the shop. She went back, but seemed unable to pull herself together to do any work.

The Sassafras-tree is no great Tree, I have met with some as big as my middle, the rind is tawny and upon that a thin colour of Ashes, the inner part is white, of an excellent smell like Fennel, of a sweet tast with some bitterness; the leaves are like Fig-leaves of a dark green. A decoction of the Roots and bark thereof sweetned with Sugar, and drunk in the morning fasting will open the body and procure a stool or two, it is good for the Scurvie taken some time together, and laying upon the legs the green leaves of white Hellebore. They give it to Cows that have newly calved to make them cast their Cleanings.

The singing Birds are Thrushes with red breasts, which will be very fat and are good meat, so are the Thressels, Filladies are small singing Birds, Ninmurders little yellow Birds. New-England Nightingales painted with orient colours, black, white, blew, yellow, green and scarlet, and sing sweetly, Wood-larks, Wrens, Swallows, who will sit upon Trees, and Starlings black as Ravens with scarlet pinions; other sorts of Birds there are, as the Troculus, Wag-tail, or Dish-water, which is here of a brown colour, Titmouse two or three sorts, the Dunneck or hedge-Sparrow who is starke naked in his winter nest.

The Snake of which there are infinite numbers of various colours, some black, others painted with red, yellow and white, some again of a grass-green colour powdered all over as it were with silver dust or Muscovie-glass. But there is one sort that exceeds all the rest, and that is the Checkquered snake, having as many colours within the checkquers shaddowing one another, as there are in a Rainbow. There are two sorts of snakes, the land-snake and the water-snake; the water-snake will be as big about the belly as the Calf of a mans leg; They kill them sometimes for their skins and bones.