Transcription: are towed to primitive jetties, alongside which lies the goods yard of the Uganda Railway. Judging by the size of this goods yard it is evident that a large amount of traffic is handled at this port; as further evidence, in addition to the "Comrie Castle" there were five other large vessels stood off in the river taking in and putting off cargo, all of course by black labour. Our draft did not actually go ashore until the Monday morning. Once ashore we were very busily engaged in getting things ready for our departure into the interior and commenced our journey by train early in the afternoon. The scenery through which we passed for the first two or three hours is quite beyond description to anyone but a gifted writer, the nearest comparison I can give being the Lake District in England, but the mountains at the mouth of the Maumandi River, which forms itself into a number of large lakes, are much higher and more majestic than those in the Lake District. Gradually the line began to ascend and we eventually lost sight of the river and lakes. At 5.30 we stopped for about an hour at a little wayside station, where we were made a very good tea of biscuits and jam. After tea it quickly drew dark and we continued our journey until 11.30 pm when we reached a large railway junction, where we were able to obtain tea, coffee and buns from the YMCA hut on the station. When we had had our refreshments the train was put into a siding and we endeavored to snatch a little sleep before continuing our journey. At five o'clock the following morning we set off again, eventually reaching our base camp at 10.30 the same morning; then commenced the task of pitching our camp and we were very busily engaged until dusk, by which time we had got things into shipshape order and were ready for a good night's rest. Our tents were mostly of the bivouac style, each accomodating eight to ten men; each man was served out with a ground sheet and a good blanket and for the first time in the experience of most, had to sleep on the ground; this did not inconvenience me personally as I had slept on the deck all the way from England, with the exception of one or two wet nights. Our base camp was situated on the highest portion of the Mbuni Plain, a district well known to big-game hunters, where I am told President Roosevelt commenced his famous big-game expedition some years ago. Above and to the north of the camp is a wood at the top of which are two small hills; on the east is a magnificent range of mountains which make a very impressive picture, the colour of them seeming to vary so wonderfully in the different lights that play upon them at different times of the day. Away to the south, twenty to thirty miles over the plain another mountain range stretches; the plain between the mountains and the camp is so vast that it looks more like the sea, being at times quite blue in appearance. To the west is another range, behind which to the north west can occasionally be seen the snow- capped peak of Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa; it is about forty miles distant and is usually seen to best advantage at sunrise. At this camp we had a very good time indded, and did not find it unduly hot as it is at a higher altitude; in fact, the weather while we were there was very much like what we get in England in September - not too hot during the day, and just a slight nip in the air at night. Before breakfast we usually had half an hour's Swedish Drill, then after breakfast about an hours drill on the parade ground; apart from occasional fatigues and guards this constituted the day's work. In place of the Swedish Drill many men had to do fatigues in connection with the cook-house - fetching fuel, water, rations and so forth. The most popular fatigue was that of fetching in the timber, a party of about two dozen men, of which I was one, set off into the wood armed with axes and cross-cut saws and cut down suitable trees which we carried or dragged back to the camp. 5

Transcription: article in demand, the next bein fruit which was particularly refreshing after we had been without for so long. I was lucky enough to get out with one of the buying parties, but as soon as I had stepped into the very first tobacco shop from the dock gates an officer bounced out of a car and ordered me to double back to the ship as she was sailing immediately; this of course prevented my obtaining any souvenirs of my visit to Cape Town; I just managed to get aboard before the gangway was drawn up. We left Cape Town about five o'clock in the afternoon and continued our journey, reaching Durban on the morning of August 12th. These four days were much more interesting than the previous part of the journey, from the fact that we kept close in to the coast all along and had a very good view of the coast line and the mountains in the distance; then too we saw more life in the way of fish and birds than we had previously seen on the whole voyage; we came across thousands of porpoises and dolphins in big schools, one or two sharks, and occasionally in the distance we would see a whale spouting. Hovering over the schools of porpoise were very large numbers of gulls and albatros, which were continually diving for the fishes disturbed by the porpoise. We also saw one or two covies of birds which had very much the appearance of wild duck. On this part of the voyage we also came across many more vessels than we had seen between England and Cape Town. Our stay in Durban, where we arrived about seven o'clock in the morning of Saturday, August 12th, was only of short duration. We moored alongside the quay next to the Union Castle Line's S/S 'Comric Castle", which was to bear us to the end of our journey by sea. First of all our kit bags and baggage were put on the quay, then taken aboard the "Comrie Castle" by natives. While this was being done we beguiled the time by watching the native dock labourers at work.. And how they work! They absolutely raced around the sheds and were all the time chanting a monotonous sort of tune which evidently helped them to pull their loads. While we were waiting to disembark a large number of people came alongside the "Suffolk" and threw aboard tremendous quantities of oranges and bags of toffee & pop- corn (evidently a favourite sweetmeat in s. Africa). As soon as all the baggage had been stowed aboard the "Comrie Castle" we were all marched on to the quay and then straight to our respective messes on the ship. Here again we were the recipients of large quantities of fruit and sweets and were snapshotted many times by the onlookers. The "Comrie Castle" was a well appointed troopship, but was sadly lacking in deck space; fortunately, however, it was the last stage of our voyage. The food was not near so good or satisfying as we had received on the "Suffolk", where we had an abundance. There was no room for games or exercise of any descripotion, but there was more air space below on the mess decks and the atmosphere at night was not nearly so stifling as was the case in the "Suffolk". On the whole, however, we made a bad swap and I think we all should have preferred to finish the trip on the "Suffolk"; in fact we all seemed to have quite an affection for this vessel. The voyage from Durban to Kilindini (Mombasa) harbour was quite devoid of interest, apart from the few occasional vessels that we passed and the glimpses that we had of the coastline from time to time. The sunsets that we witnessed in this stage of our journey were quite remarkable, far surpassing anything I have ever seen at home. We arrived in Kilindini harbour on Sunday morning, August 20th, at about 7 am. Here is a splendid natural harbour which could apparently be developed splendidly; at present vessels have to anchor in the middle of the river and tranship passengers and goods to lighters which 4

Transcription: "Woe be to the individual who tried to evade my laws. "Given under my hand and seal, this twenty eighth day of July, one thousand nine hundred and sixteen" The reason for delaying the ceremony was that at the time we actually crossed the Equator it was quite dark, so accordingly on the following day, at two o'clock in the afternoon, all the various detachments of troops were paraded on deck and Neptune with his suite came round and chose a few men from each unit to undergo the cleansing ordeal. The gathering round the canvas plunge bath was very picturesque; on a platform at one end of the bath were Neptune, Cleopatra and Neptune's secretary: on another platform alongside the bath were the doctor, barber and their assistants: in the bath were the three bears, and a member of Neptune's policemen were constantly scouting round the vessel and bringing in additional victims. Each uncleansed one was seated in turn on the edge of the bath, duly sounded by the doctor by means of a megaphone, temperature and pulse taken, then liberally lathered with flour paste (put on by means of a whitewash brush) and shaven with a huge silvered wooden razor; while the latter operation was being performed, the victim was gently but firmly assisted into the bath, where the three bears saw to it that he was thoroughly immersed and cleansed. After a good number of men had been ducked in this manner the troops then took matters into their own hands and threw Neptune & Co into the bath, threw busketsful of water upon them and finally turned the hose upon them; then followed a regular melēe, first the sailors then the soldiers obtaining the hose from each other in turns and scattering men in all directions. In this manner quite a large proportion of men got a soaking, for which they had not bargained. This of course closed the proceedings and every man was bound to admit that the afternoon had been one of the merriest he had ever spent - all of us were like so many happy schoolboys. After a very good voyage we arrived at Cape Town at daybreak on Tuesday, Aug 8th. What an impressive sight it is that one sees on entering Cape Town harbour in the early dawn! In this instance we saw the mountain without the usual "table cloth" cloud hiding the summit, but when we left laterr in the day the cloud had quite hidden the plateau. On arrival at Cape Town there was some doubt as to whether we should be allowed to land at all, but at noon, after having had an early dinner, the whole of the troops aboard were disembarked and marched through the principal streets of the city and given a short rest in a park at the foot of the mountain; during this rest a swarm of nigger boys did a roaring trade in oranges and cigarettes, the oranges particularly being eagerly snapped up as we had not had an opportunity of obtaining fruit since we left England. After standing about for a little time we were marshalled together again and by a somewhat different route were marched back to the vessel, the whole "walk" having lasted about two hours. All the men were keenly disappointed that they had not been permitted to spend a little time ashore on their own, and rather than being pleased with their visit to Cape Town they were irritated by having been treated like so many Sunday School scholars out for their Whitsuntide walk. Just a very small proportion of the men were given permission to go into the town as buying parties under the supervision of N.C.O.s. Needless to say tobacco was the most important 3

Transcription: decks, ship's police and mounting guard at various places on the boat. The men at each mess table had to take turns, two on duty together, as mess orderlies, their duties being to serve the meals and clean up the tables and utensils after each meal. In addition to the above duties all men had to parade each morning at 11am for officers' rounds and were given half an hour's Swedish Drill occasionally to prevent them from growing stale. To keep the men interested, after being at sea about a week some sports were organised and provided plenty of amusement, most of the items being of a humorous character. They included Tug of War, obstacle race, cock-fighting (men trussed up of course, not birds), potato race, apple-bobbing, bolster bar, swinging the monkey, wheelbarrow race, stocking & rattles and deck quoits. The sports were got up more with the idea of finding something with which to interest the men, rather than for the prizes, although in the end it turned out that the prize money totalled about seventeen pounds. For the men who cared for reading there was a very good library of interesting books of travel and adventure and many standard novels, which were very much appreciated, because surprisingly few men had started out with any reading matter. After having been at sea a little more than a week we sighted the North West Coast of Africa on Monday morning, July 24th, and by noon had dropped anchor in the harbour of Dakar, a very prosperous looking town in French Senegal. Facing the sea are some magnificent buildings, evidently Government offices, and in the distance could be seen the chimney stacks of several factories, which are no doubt employed in manipulating the raw products of the colony. We only stayed about four hours at Dakar, which time the officers spendc ashore; our letters to home were put off here and we took aboard mails for places down south; we also had visits from several of the French officials of the port. While at Dakar we derived a large amount of amusement from the natives, who swarmed around the vessel in all kinds of odd-looking craft. The first lot that came offered to dive for coins, asking us to throw shillings. One or two shillings were thrown into the water for them, but not until we had tried them with pennies, which they allowed to sink, saying "No! One s'illing, one s'illing - penny no good!" At this price of course business was not very brisk, but eventually more boats came up, then competition became quite keen, pennies now being as eagerly dived for as were shillings only a few minutes earlier. The natives were extremely clever at the diving, the coins being recovered before they had got many feet below the surface of the water. They also did a good trade with us by selling cigarettes, sweets, picture postcards and other sundries, which we hauled up on deck by means of old hats. On July 28th, at 8 pm, we "crossed the line". Heralded by a bugle call, king Neptune and his suite came aboard and made the following proclamation. "I, Neptune, King of the Seas, learning that His Majesty's Australian Troopship Suffolk is passing through" "my most spotless domain, TO ALL IT MAY CONCERN, be it known that I, Neptune, the King, have "boarded this ship tonight, learning that you have got on board many people who have not been cleansed "according to my most unalterable laws. I decree, first, that I personally inspect the vessel tonight, and "second, all those that I mark as unclean be taken tomorrow from different parts of the ship and shall be duly "washed and made fit to enter my most cleanly territory. There is no appeal against my decree, for I am "Neptune, King of the Seas, and have with me my professional cleansers, who shall do what seemeth good in "their eyes. 2

Description: Este un volum de jurnal din cele trei deţinute de Biblioteca Judeţeană Octavian Goga Cluj. || Dumitru Nistor, ţăran din satul Năsăud s-a născut în 1893. Visând din copilărie să călătorească şi să vadă ţări străine, în 1912, când vine vremea “număraşului” (recrutării) el cere să fie primit nu în miliţia ardeleană, unde erau recrutaţi de obicei românii, ci în marina austro-ungară. Terminând şcoala de marină, după o călătorie la Viena, este îmbarcat ca Geschützvormeister (“primul îndreptător de tun”) pe vasul SMS Kaiserin Elisabeth, cu destinaţia Asia. Prins de război în Marea Chinei, crucişătorul Kaiserin Elisabeth participă la câteva bătălii navale, pentru ca în 2 noiembrie 1914 să se hotărască scufundarea lui. Echipajul pierde şi lupta terestră, este luat prizonier de japonezi şi transportat în arhipelagul nipon. Timp de zece luni, ţăranul-marinar din Năsăud va fi prizonier într-o mănăstirea buddhistă din Himeji, iar apoi mutat într-un lagăr, construit special pentru prizonierii germani şi austrieci, la Aonogahara, nu departe de Kobe, unde va rămâne până la sfârşitul anului 1919.

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Description: Part of the documentary ensemble: BNUStras1 || Appartient à l’ensemble documentaire : BNUStr003 || Appartient à l’ensemble documentaire : BNUStras1 || || Appartient à l’ensemble documentaire : BNUStr003 || Appartient à l’ensemble documentaire : BNUStras1

Description: Part of the documentary ensemble: BNUStras1 || || Appartient à l’ensemble documentaire : BNUStr003 || Appartient à l’ensemble documentaire : BNUStras1

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