as Chief of the Staff, and the first news received by the Man of Mafeking (how odd it seems now!) was that Sir Frederick Carrington had gone up to Mafeking, and that he was to follow.

In three days Baden-Powell was in Mafeking, the guest of Mr.Julius Weil, who gave an anxious England as much important news of the gallant little Mafeking garrison during the Boer war as the universal Reuter himself.

Odd, too, it seems that while in Mafeking in 1896 B.-P.

should write in his diary that "Plumer's force, specially raised here in the South, had got within touch of Buluwayo." Names how much more familiar in 1900! Buluwayo was the town selected by the Matabele for their first blow, and accordingly with Sir Frederick Carrington and two other officers B.-P.

set out from Mafeking on the 23rd May in a ramshackle coach, drawn by ten mules, on a drive of ten days and nights to Buluwayo.