S .S. Vaderland
Queenstown
6/3/15
My darling wife,
As you see by the above we are still in Queenstown we expected to disembark entrain to Dublin & sail from there to Holyhead, en-route to to [sic] Salisbury Plain, but for some reason or other we are still on board the Vaderland awaiting orders to proceed heaven knows where, from all reports the German Submarines have been pretty active in the Irish sea this last few days, & we consider ourselves fortunate in getting here without them seeing us. We had a route march yesterday through Queenstown & right out in the Country it was splendid. the weather here is almost like summer & the scenery is beautiful very hilly & very like N. Wales, I tell you the Canadian boys just thought it fine, it was very amusing though to see one of the boys now & again reach out to get the yellow flower off the gorse bushes, not knowing they were prickly, then of course there would be a loud laugh from the other fellows & a heartfelt dam [sic] from the victim. The people here gave us a great reception on our march, calling out all kinds of blessings on us in their rich Irish brogue, had a ride around the city with some other officers this morning in a jaunting car the driver kept us amused the whole time explaining the nature of the principle attractions & the history of the people who live there & have lived there for the last 200 years, no doubt he added quite a lot, among other things we visited the Roman Catholic Cathedral here which is a beautiful building, with a very high steeple which they have almost completed we went up the steeple & believe me it was some climb, & after getting down my legs were quivering for an hour afterwards with the tax they had been put to. Well sweetheart will write you again in a day or two, keep smiling, & dont worry about any rumours or reports you may hear, I heard yesterday that it had been reported in the Montreal papers that we had been sunk, I hope it's not true that such was reported as it would make the people pretty anxious. Well so long darling fondest love to you & the kiddies & love to all on the farm & the girls.
Your loving hubby,
Jim.
