John Salter was diagnosed as suffering from "Melancholia" after falling on his head when taking horses to water at Beira on 26/04/1900. The medical report states he was acting in a strange manner on the march to Bulawayo and strayed from camp and was lost on the veld for three days. On arrival in Bulawayo, according to the medical report, he was suffering persecutory delusions and threatened suicide. He was invalided out of the army and placed under watch. The watch continued on the ship to New Zealand. Salter, when going to the latrine, gave the orderly watching him the slip and went up the stairs to the upper deck where he was seen to climb over the rail and jump into the sea. Major Alfred Edwards Perkins, New South Wales Army Medical Corps, gave evidence at the enquiry as follows:- "On 13th December 1900 at Cape Town John Salter was handed over to me ... I at once went through them (medical papers) and found that Salter was set down as a Lunatic, he had not received any treatment except that of rest and watching". Perkins continued the "watching" on the ship, delegating the watching to three orderlies. "I also saw him ten or twelve times each day - he was perfectly rational and showed no signs of suicidal tendancies ...". [Source: Service Record, Archives New Zealand]