did. Lord Edward Cecil's work was ceaseless; as Chief Staff Officer he

came in for both the external fights and the internal discords. He smoothed down quarrels, dispensed justice, allayed "siege fever" in all its intermittent phases, and in fact performed the tasks of ten men, with unfailing courtesy and inexhaustible patience. The pinch of the siege had gradually become more painful, and luxuries for some time had been commandeered for the use of the sick. Luckily, some Chinamen among the besieged contrived to grow vegetables in small quantities for the use of the inhabitants, and by force of good management in the disposal of the food supplies, which had been stocked by Messrs. Weil before the outbreak of the war, a fixed scale of rations for every man, woman, and child was secured. Conversation grew monotonous. It circled round the positions of the guns, the chance of relief, and question of stores, till it produced a mental giddiness that verged on the idiotic. Few grumbled, few swore. In this matter the Boers acted as a safety-valve. When people felt in the "something's too bad of somebody" mood, they could go out and snipe, and vent their spleen usefully and to the honour of their country! Sundays were more than ever flat. There was not the excitement attendant on dodging shells in the open. Speculation on the subject of food languished round the limitations of Hobson's choice. Mr. Neilly in the _Pall Mall Gazette_ gave a sorry outline of the scanty fare. "I will attempt to give you an idea of what this scarcity of diet means. You are in a trench. In the early morning you have handed to you a piece of bread as big as a breakfast roll and a little tin of 'bully' sufficient for one average meal. You have some of it for breakfast, and if you have not an iron will you will eat the lot there and then, and go hungry for the rest of the twenty-four hours. What you leave is kept in the broiling sun until luncheon-time, when you find the beef reduced to an oily mess that does not look very appetising. You eat more and tighten your belt a hole or two to delude yourself into the belief that you have had a satisfying meal. You roast away again until dinner-time, when you gather up the last crumb and sigh for a few hours in the Adelaide Gallery or even in an East-End cookshop. But this is not all; you are for guard duty from midnight until 3 A.M. You have no sleep before you go on, and the slumber you fall into when relieved is destroyed an hour after you have entered upon it by the morning order to stand to arms. You thus get a schoolboy's luncheon to keep you alive for twenty-four hours. It is made unpalatable by the sun, and if a Mafeking shower falls, the odds are that it will be flooded over and buried in the mud at the bottom of the trench."

At this time Cronje, by way of recreation, returned to Mafeking, a fleeting visit, possibly to test some novel plans for the purpose of subduing the town. He came armed with incendiary shells, which were supposed to hit and blaze up and cause an inspiriting conflagration. But they did not succeed. They caused a conflagration certainly, but its duration was limited. At the end of it, Mafeking smiled still, but smiled with the curled lip of scorn. The convent, notwithstanding its symbol of the Red Cross, had been hit, and crushed, and wrecked; the hospital had been assailed; the sacred claim of humanity had been outraged; women and children had been subjected to terrors of fact and terrors of dread. These atrocities continued, and Her Majesty's long-suffering subjects looked on and waited; they believed that deliverance must soon come. If they had not had that belief to help them, they would have died or surrendered. They believed that a day of reckoning would arrive, and that then Cronje and his diabolical hirelings would come by their deserts. If only they could have skipped six weeks and looked into the mirror of Fate, the drama at Paardeberg Drift would have reassured them. As it was, they had to live in faith. The series of atrocities that marked the Boer assaults had scarcely a counterpart in modern history, and it grew doubtful, if ever their turn should come, whether the besieged would be prevailed upon to emit one spark of that "magnanimity" with which their countrymen had been so lavish, and which the Boer had grown to account as a natural weakness of these "verdomde rooineks."

Siege life was now becoming painfully irksome. A blazing sun, a drenching rain, a gust of wind through the pepper trees, this was all the variety at hand. The inhabitants of the town began to feel like ghosts of themselves, ghouls walking the earth, yet out of touch with those who spoke of them as a memory, and nothing more. To them it was the quiet of the grave. They waited like some enchanted princess of a fairy tale for the time when the magic wand should wave and their pulses throb with joy and excitation, with laughter and zest for the good things of the hour. Now they walked as in a dream to the accompaniment of shot and shell, surrounded by devilish ogres and looters of the dead, while somewhere within a few miles of them, kith and kin, living and breathing kith and kin, seemed as phantoms in a nightmare to pass by and to ignore! A speechless, soundless asphyxia of the soul seemed to be creeping over these tired patient heroes! They still waited and hoped, but hoping and waiting had now grown monotonous, almost mechanical, as the tickings of an eight-day clock.

Rumours many and fantastic were brought in by the natives. It was believed that a new year's gift of three waggon loads of ammunition had been received by the Boers from Pretoria, and also a new gun. This weapon it was afterwards discovered was provided with more combustible bombs, horrible missiles that disgorge a chemical liquid which ignites in contact with the air. Here was a continual horror, and one that was only combated by extreme precautions. Though Colonel Baden-Powell in his nook on the stoep of his house continued to whistle his insouciant notes, his busy brains needed to be Machiavellian in their ingenuity. Some declared he slept with one eye open; others, that he never slept at all. Certain it was that when all were hushed in slumber he was "on the prowl," either on the roof or in the open, reading from the heavens above or the earth beneath the enemy's approaching machinations. Some find sermons in stones; B.-P. found inspiration in sand and sky.

The Boers continued their bombardment, the sun continued to blaze, to smite the tin roofs and glaring sandy roads. After persistently directing shells on the women's laager the ruffians succeeded in murdering three little children. These were of Dutch nationality, and it was hoped that their loss might possibly awaken a feeling of humanity and remorse in the breast of those who had prompted the assault on the defenceless position. But their conduct was rendering those within the town exasperated almost to madness. They panted for a chance to mete out annihilation to the blood-lusting rascals and untamed savages who were harassing them. They did their best, and sat down to the business of clearing off as many as possible of the polyglot horde who worked the guns.

The work done by the Bechuanaland Rifles and the British South Africa Police was prodigious. They shrunk from no toil and no exposure so that they might reduce the number of the besiegers. Early in the New Year the Rifles entrenched themselves within 900 yards of the enemy's big guns, and spent days and nights in the trenches, relieved at intervals by the Police. From nine on one night till nine the next they would occupy their unenviable position, carrying with them their day's food and water, and employing themselves during the hours of light by keeping up a persistent fire on the Boer siege gun. On occasions their fire was so accurate that the Dutchmen had entirely to abandon the work of loading and training the gun. So smart, at last, grew the British sharpshooters, that during each Sabbath the gun was shifted farther and farther away.

Colonel Baden-Powell's resourcefulness was again put to the test, and was again triumphant. The Boers were somewhat nonplussed by the discovery that he had a new weapon of defence. They put their heads together and concluded that the weapon must have sprung from the bowels of the earth. It so happened that in some long-forgotten stores in the town an old ship's gun was suddenly discovered. Quickly it was brought into action. But the ways of this old muzzle-loading 16-pounder were not as the ways of the modern "Long Toms," whose tricks were "understanded" of the Boer people. It had curious and distinctive virtues of its own. This gun threw solid shot, which, unlike a shell that bursts and is done with for better or for worse, gallivanted along the ground according to its own sweet will, and produced little surprises that caused the Colonel much amusement and not a little satisfaction.

The biography of the treasure-trove was written by Mr. Angus Hamilton of _Black and White_, who declared that there was quite a flutter of excitement at the appearance of the antiquated weapon. "It would seem," he said, "to have been made about 1770, and is identical with those which up till very recently adorned the quay at Portsmouth. Its weight is 8 cwt. 2 qr. 10 lbs., and it was made by B. P. & Co. It is a naval gun, and is stamped 'No. 6 port.' How it came here is uncertain, and its origin unknown; but one gathers that it must have been intended more for privateering than for use in any Government ship of war, since it is wanting in all official superscription. This weapon, which we have now christened 'B. P.' out of a compliment to the Colonel, has been lying upon the farm of an Englishman whose interests are very closely united with the native tribe whose headquarters are in Mafeking Stadt. Mr. Rowlands can recall the gun passing this way in charge of two Germans nearly forty years ago. He remembers to have seen it in the possession of Linchwe's tribe, and upon his return to the Baralongs, after one of his trading journeys, he urged the old chief to secure it for use in defence of the Stadt against the attacks of Dutch freebooters. The chief then visited Linchwe and bought the gun for twenty-two oxen, bringing it down to Mafeking upon his waggon. In those days it had three hundred rounds of ammunition, which were utilised in tribal fights. With the exception of visits which the gun made to local tribes, it has remained here, and is now in the possession of Mr. Rowlands. It has recently been mounted, and is in active operation against our enemies. We have made balls for it, and are intending to manufacture shells, in the hope we shall at least be able to reach the emplacement of Big Ben. The first trial of 'B. P.' in its new career gave very satisfactory results. With two pounds of powder it threw a ball of ten pounds more than two thousand yards. The power of the charge was increased by half pounds until a charge of three pounds threw a ball of the same weight as the first rather more than two miles. We, therefore, have pinned our hopes upon it, and commend to the responsible authorities the reflections which may be derived from the fact that our chief and most efficient means of defence lie in such a weapon."

The mosquito tactics of the wily Colonel proceeded as usual, but the Boer was hard to checkmate. On the 15th of January an attack was made by the sharpshooters against the enemy's big gun battery, with the pleasing result that on the following day the 94-pounder and high-velocity Krupp evacuated their positions, and retired to a more distant one on the east side of the town, whence their command of the place was comparatively limited. In this quarter, now that the foe was pushed out of rifle range, it was possible to open grazing for cattle, a very desirable movement, for the poor lean beasts were waning rapidly. At this time Captain FitzClarence was reported among the convalescents, the wound received on the 26th of December having almost healed.

Preparations were set on foot for the purpose of routing the enemy with dynamite, failing all other means of ridding the town of his too intimate proximity. Colonel Baden-Powell's motto, unlike that of British Governments, was to take time by the forelock. He left nothing to chance. In order to avert any risk of running short of supplies, rations were reduced, and oats which had previously belonged to the beasts were promoted to the use of their owners. Very stringent laws existed for the economising of everything. Matches and tinned milk were commandeered, and the theft of a matchbox was now viewed as a heinous crime. Tobacco in small quantities remained, but wines and spirits were fast running out. There were pathetic leave-takings as each quart of whisky disappeared from the stores; there was no knowing when would arrive the hour for a fond and a last farewell. Conversation grew still more monotonous. It mostly consisted of how the inner man should be sustained, and of anecdotes of agility in avoiding shot and shell.

Still, considerable interest was taken in the performances of the old 16-pounder, which had been rigged up and christened by some "Skipping Polly," on account of its skittish habits and its propensity to ricochet. This, though erratic in its proceedings, did good work, and struck the parapet of the enemy's fort. On the 10th of January violent rains came down, and rendered most of the trenches in front of the town uninhabitable, and life in general almost unendurable. Never was there greater need for the inestimable virtues of pluck and patience, and if medals had been awarded for these united qualities, the inhabitants of Mafeking would all have possessed them.

The pinch of siege life now became terribly evident, for the Kaffirs were reduced to eating mules. The British feared their turn at this diet would come directly. But the garrison was still cheery, and their entrenchments were considerably improved. In these Colonel Baden-Powell took a just pride, and his activity in promoting the safety and comfort of the inhabitants was boundless. They declared that they could feed themselves for another three months, but the nature of the form of provision was not divulged. Hardships and privations were endured by the little force with really amazing pluck. Beds they had scarcely enjoyed since the commencement of the siege; baths were almost as foreign, few had had a chance to remove their clothes; and news--the stimulus of the outside world--was entirely lacking. Letters now and then were passed out, but the real truth could never be trusted to black and white.

The office of censor was undertaken by the Hon. A. H. Hanbury Tracy (Royal Horse Guards). His occupation was a hard and a thankless one, for constant vigilance had to be exercised lest reports concerning the inner state of Mafeking--reports most ardently craved by those interested at home--might fall into the hands of the enemy, and thus cramp the operations of Colonel Baden-Powell and those who helped him to present a bold and fearless front to the hovering hordes who were waiting smugly for what they believed to be the inevitable.

On the 17th General Snyman bethought himself of a new way of starving the garrison into surrender. He sent a party of natives to enjoy the hospitality of the already sparsely fed town. It had not a mule to spare for extra Kaffirs, and Colonel Baden-Powell sternly though regretfully refused admittance to the new-comers. According to Boer usage, the officer and orderly who conveyed the message, notwithstanding the fact that they carried a white flag, were fired upon by the enemy while they were returning. A dastardly trick this, and the garrison resented it.

At this time the news of the grand Ladysmith sortie was received with rejoicings, and the bellicose youngsters of the community began to rack fertile brains in hope to emulate the courage and dash of the sister garrison. On this day a shell hit the shelter occupied by Major Baillie and Mr. Stent, Reuter's correspondent, and portions crashed through Dixon's Hotel, but fortunately without injuring any one.

News now reached the benighted villagers that Colonel Plumer, with three armoured trains, had actually reached Gaberones, some three hundred miles north of Mafeking. The troops had some sharp tussles with the Boers, and drove them out of rifle range while the railway operatives mended the line. Where Colonel Plumer's three trains came from was a mystery. He was known to have _one_, but there was no saying of what Rhodesia might not be capable in time of stress. Colonel Plumer had his work cut out for him, but he was not a man to sheer off difficult tasks, and there was intense hope that he might succeed. But there was always the Boer artillery--a terrible barrier between the relieving force and Mafeking--and in the face of this even the finest warriors, almost gunless, could scarcely be expected to advance alive.

On the 19th of January the small community celebrated the 100th day of the siege. All the corners of the square had been knocked off by the ever-active Boers, but the village maintained a suitable air of liveliness. Exhibitions were arranged, and some smart fighting showed that the right arm of the British had lost none of its cunning.

There were fat days and lean days in Mafeking. Though for the most part leanness prevailed, there was now and then to be found an oasis in the desert of the commissariat. Occasionally some successful raid made by the natives was productive of real meals--succulent beef _versus_ old mule and husks. In the course of one daring foray the natives secured two dozen head of cattle; in another they carried off prizes of fat kine to the tune of a score. The excursions took place under cover of darkness, and, like all raids, were pursued without the consent of the Government. The natives had a process peculiarly their own in seducing the fat kine to follow them home. Devoid of clothing, and crawling snake-like over the veldt, they would approach the grazing cattle and gradually draw off such beasts as appeared goodly in their eyes, and which had been previously marked down with the acuteness of hungry instinct. Noiselessly the animals were enticed on and on till they reached the precincts of the staadt, where the raiders were anxiously looked for by their Baralong friends. These famishing individuals greeted the successful capture of the wherewithal to maintain life with shouts and dances of joy.

The garrison was soon put on a scale of still more reduced rations. These consisted of half a pound of meat and the same of bread daily. The luxuries of life--the people in England looked on them as necessaries!--tea, sugar, biscuits, jams, &c., were commandeered. In January the following housekeeper's notes were made by the correspondent of the _Times_:--"Meal and flour have jumped from 27s. per bag to 50s.; potatoes, where they exist at all, are £2 per cwt.; fowls are 7s. 6d. each; and eggs 12s. per dozen. Milk and vegetables can no longer be obtained, and rice has taken the place of the latter upon the menus. These figures mark the rise in the more important food-stuffs as sold across the counter, but the hotels have, in sympathy, followed the example, they upon their part attributing it to the increase which the wholesale merchants have decreed. A peg of whisky is 1s. 6d., dop brandy 1s., gin 1s., large stout is 4s., small beer 2s. In ordinary times whisky retails at 5s. per bottle. This rate has now advanced to 18s. per bottle and 80s. per case. Dop, which is usually 1s. 4d., is now 12s. per bottle; the difference upon beer is almost 200 per cent., and inferior cigarettes are now 18s. per 100."

On the good management of the contractors, Messrs. Weil & Co., every one depended for flesh and blood. On them rested the responsibility of issuing daily rations--bread and meat for the garrison, forage for horses, and food for natives--and very excellently they fulfilled their difficult task.

On the 21st an unusual sort of show was held. The exhibits ranged from foals to babies, Mr. Minchin (Bechuanaland Rifles) securing first prize for the former, while Sergeant Brady, B.S.A.P., was the proud winner of the prize for the latter.

Colonel Baden-Powell sent a despatch reporting his own doings at the end of January to Colonel Nicholson. It ran as follows:--

"Inform the Commanding Staff Officer that we are well here. On January 23 the enemy moved their north-east supporting laager to within 4500 yards of the town. We pushed our advance works in that direction, and mounted Lord Nelson, an old naval smooth-bore gun, in an emplacement 3100 yards from the enemy. On the evening of January 29 we unmasked our guns and shelled the enemy's camp with complete success. Next morning the Boer laager was moved back two miles.

"On the 31st we were busy on all sides of the town. On the south the men in our advance works had a skirmish with three of the enemy's Krupp and Maxim guns, the firing being very heavy. A bombardment of our front on Cannon Kopje by the Boer 94-pounder followed. On the east front our four guns replied to this by a concentrated fire on the brickfield entrenchments, where the enemy poured in a musketry and artillery fire.

"On the north the enemy's 5-pounders kept up a steady fire. They dropped one shell through the roof of the hospital, but luckily it did not explode. On the west the enemy, from their advanced works, opened a heavy rifle and Maxim fire on Fort Ayr, which our fort eventually silenced by the well-aimed fire of its guns. The enemy sent three big shells into the town after dark, but they gained nothing during the day.

"Our casualties during the past two days from the enemy's shell fire have been three killed and three wounded. Mr. Kiddy, of the Railway Department, has died of fever.

"On February 2 General Snyman, in reply to my letter with regard to his deliberately shelling the women and children's laagers on the 27th ult., offered no excuse or apology, and by a transparent falsehood practically admits that he ordered it. I have told him that I have now established temporary premises for the Boer prisoners in the women's laager and in the hospital, in order to protect these places from deliberate shelling."

General Snyman and Colonel Baden-Powell had also a correspondence regarding Snyman's arming and raising of natives. In reply the old commandant said that he had merely armed the natives as cattle-guards. In his turn he complained that the British had been seen making fortifications on Sunday. The Colonel, who only relaid some mine wires, informed him that he had himself been entertained by watching the building of new fortifications by the Boers on that day.

On the 25th of January a shell burst through the convent, which was used as a convalescent hospital, and slightly wounded Lady Sarah Wilson, who had taken upon herself the care of the invalids. On the following day the women's laager was continuously shelled, but fortunately with small result. There was general jubilation at reports received regarding the success of Lord Roberts' operations. The news was an immense stimulus, and speculation as to the date of relief was freely indulged in. The besieged had learnt to gather hope from the smallest incidents. The disappearance from time to time of the 5-pounder Krupp, the 1-pounder Maxim, the 9-pounder quick-firing Creusot, which had a trick of making weekly excursions somewhere--caused them to conjecture whether Colonel Plumer had reached a point where these pieces could be made to come in handy. The 100-pounder Creusot, however, was untiring. It engaged only in shorter peregrinations, moving from one emplacement to another by way of variety, and keeping up a system of torture which acted badly on the nerves of the unhappy persons who were honoured with its attentions.

The following telegram, forwarded by runner from the Mayor of Mafeking (Mr. Whiteley), was addressed to Queen Victoria: "Mafeking upon the hundredth day of siege sends loyal devotion to your Majesty, and assurance of continued resolve to maintain your Majesty's supremacy in this town." The splendid little garrison had indeed a right to be proud of itself for having for so long a period held at bay a puissant and spiteful foe. It had fought, it had schemed, it had set its wits against the wits of Cronje and his successors, and defied them magnificently. "No surrender" was its motto, and the reply from the enemy was stamped on every house of this minute town--so minute that it could have been "stowed within the railings of St. James' Park"--and scribbled in large black defacing lines wherever shot and shell could penetrate. Some idea of life's daily accompaniment of artillery may be arrived at by reading a description of his experiences recounted by Mr. Neilly of the _Pall Mall Gazette_. He said:--"When the enemy's artillery began to send us the heavy ration, those who knew most about the power of modern long-range high-velocity arms dreaded most the consequences. At the advice of our commander-in-chief, we went to earth, some into dug-outs, I, with others, into the wine-cellar of the hotel, which I consider was the most comfortable and luxurious place in the town. After breakfast a twelve-pounder on the heights went 'Boom!' Where had the shell gone? Had it struck a house? Had the building collapsed? Would the town be flattened and set on fire when the whole battery came into action? We speculated so until the second boom sounded, and the third quickly followed. Himmel! We had got it, and what a crash it was! Something had given way, and _débris_ and shrapnel scattered like a hailstorm across the dining-room floor overhead. While some calmed the ladies, others of us doubled up through the trapdoor, slid the panel that divides the bar from the dining-room, and looked in. The dense smoke of the bursting charge filled the place, but there was nothing to indicate that anything was aflame. When the air cleared slightly we entered, to find the floor and tables littered with brick-dust and scrap iron; but the area of destruction was confined to the brickwork at the side of the window. Nothing was stirred upon the tables, which were laid for luncheon. That was enough. Had the house been built of good tough English brick, its flank would have probably collapsed; the rottenness of the walls had saved them; the rottenness of all the houses would bring about comparative safety to the town. Solids struck by shell add to the destruction wrought by the projectile through flying splinters; but there is no use in trying to batter sand stuck together with water. The concussion sends off the detonator, the burst makes a hole in the wall, and the further results are an untidied room and a bad fright to anybody who may be in it."

The writer, like the rest of the plucky crew, talked airily of the ordeal that all passed through, without a single boast of the splendid effect of the garrison's doughty resistance to the enemy in the early phases of the war.

It is scarcely possible to exaggerate the full importance of this magnificent defence at that time. As an object-lesson in British pluck, and the marvellous celerity with which peace-loving citizens may become glorious fighters, the defence as a whole stands without parallel. But from a political point of view the initial stoutness of the resistance was a _coup_ which had far-reaching results.

There is no doubt that at the outset of the war a conspiracy was on foot between the Cape Dutch and the Federals, and that the capture of certain towns was to be taken as a signal for the joining of the allies to drive the British from South Africa. It was thought that the apparently insignificant village of Mafeking would be among the first to fall, and the conspirators congratulated themselves that once the place went under, the door to Rhodesia would fly open. The gallant Cronje, with nothing better to occupy him, could have worked his way north, attacked Colonel Plumer and his small force, and without doubt defeated them. He would then have proceeded on a triumphal march. Having intimidated the natives, who invariably back the man with the visible biceps, and having armed the Matabele and Mashonas, he would have completely swept and devastated the fair country of the Colossus before our troops could have had time to save it from ruin. How far the ruin would have spread it is difficult to say. Like dynamite, it would have struck upwards and downwards, north and south. The capture of Mafeking would have unhinged the native population there, and forced them to side with the Boers; and once the natives got under arms the situation would have become so complicated that it might have taken years to unravel, if indeed the Government had the patience to unravel it at all.

Then disaffection would have spread rapidly, even to Table Bay. Had Cronje at the outset not been kept tied to the place, occupied in trying to crack the nut which he eventually found too hard for his own teeth and for the sledge-hammer weapons of his mercenaries, he would have gone on from town to town gathering up adherents as he went, and causing intimidation of such a kind that even the loyally disposed would in sheer self-defence have thrown in their lot with him.