BOER PRISONERS IN CEYLON.

Timaru Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 3559, 8 May 1901, Page 4

BOER PRISONERS IN CEYLON.

The four thousand three hundred Boers who are staying for a while in Ceylon are having a much easier time than their brothers in the field. A cable message recently told us that they are well-housed, well-fed, and in good health, and they are, therefore, probably as contented as any prisoners of war ever were. What we hear now of them only confirms what a former prisoner of war, Mr Cloete, says tti their condition. In an extract from his diary he gives a very cheerful account of the captivity of his fellow-coun-trymen. At Diyatalawa he found them all "jovial, contented, and healthy." He cannot, he says, honestly call them unfortunate. They are not soldiers by profession, and are thankful to be out of the hopeless war, which a doubtful patriotism is still prolonging. Colonel Vincent and the Governor, Sir West Ridgway, are unanimously liked by the Boer exiles.; they possess the rare combination of strict adherence to duty with all possible consideration for those in their charge. The boys in the camp are being-educated by picked schoolmasters, while-men who are commercially inclined have every facility for carrying on business. The shops m camp are much frequented. In the hospital the few patients have every possible comfort; the best medical aid procurable in the island is at their service, the doctors on duty being all distinguished graduates of British Universities, and the nurses having special experience in enteric fever. The climate of the place, Mr Cloete says, is delightful, "like that of Johannesburg in summer"—is not this rather an aspersion of Ceylon weather!—and the water supply «coming from a. high hill some miles off ia perfectlv pure. The deaths that occur are chiefly due to injudicious friends smuggling in food to the patients and so causing fatal relapses. A similar cheerful account is given of Mount Lavinia, where the lieutenant in charge is especially sympathetic, and the exiles are as "jolly as sandboys. In fact, until the settlement of their country, the captives seem much better off than either the desperate bands that ollow De Wet or the more peaceful colonists ■who are exposed to his tyranny .