Topic: Army Rations
Soldiers Fare in South Africa
The following short item is as published in the Los Angeles Herald, 13 March 1900
Color Sergeant Thompson of 40 Gwynne Avenue, [Toronto], now with the Second Battalion, Royal Canadian Regiment, in South Africa, writes home:
"We killed an ostrich the other day and had him for dinner. He went down fine; also a swarm of locusts, of which we eat some. They are all right too. You see, we don't live badly. There is not a tree to be seen—all sand and rocks—any amount of snakes, centipedes, scorpions, lizards and big black ants. These ants get inside the boys' clothes and make themdance and swear. Tomorrow will be Christmas and we are to have a big ostrich roasted for dinner, with lots of goats' milk to drink."
Color-Sergeant Charles Henry Thompson