"With the First Contingent on Board the Sardinian,".
The Canadian Magazine, Feb., 1900, p. 323. For many men the thirty day sea voyage to Cape Town proved the worst part of the war. Quarters aboard the slow-moving ship, the Sardinian, were stifling and crowded. Lavatories and sanitary arrangements were inadequate and drinking water in such short supply a guard had to be posted over the tap in order to retain sufficient water to reach South Africa. In the tropics, the most trying part of the journey, many men were badly burned owing to a stupid order from the Commanding Officer to go barefoot on the deck. "A bath under the salt water hose the first thing in the morning," one recruit reported, "was, probably, the most enjoyable part of the day's routine." Pictures of men washing, bathing and showering were popular press back home. They suggested the civilized nature of the troops who insisted on the amenities of organized life even under great difficulty. These pictures sometimes carried the caption, "The Boers might take a lesson," trading on the then current stereotype of the Boers as backward farmers dwelling in filth.
