sions of a supreme Imperial effort, to avert a danger threatening the very existence of the Empire.

It is very interesting to trace the course of these stupendous operations. After the reverse of Nicholson's Nek on the night of October 30-31, orders were given on a wholesale scale for the despatch of troops to the seat of war. Transports were engaged, a second army corps was mobilised, and in a very short time the great liners were conveying reinforcements with all speed southward.

There came, in fact, a continuous stream of steamers from the English ports right up to the middle of November, when the general military situation had become so critical that a fifth division for South Africa was constituted. The permanent service sections B and C of the Army Reserves were called up for permanent service; and other arrangements were made for increasing the forces in the field on a substantial scale.

One of the most interesting features of the campaign now began to assert itself. From all parts of the Empire came offers of men and munitions. These, which had at first been but coldly received by the War Office, were now

gladly accepted. Australia and Canada sent considerable contingents, while the lesser Colonies loyally contributed their share.

So matters went on till the middle of December, when in one week three great disasters overtook the British arms. There was now seen such an outburst of martial and patriotic feeling as had never been recorded in the history of the British Empire. It is hardly too much to say that every man of fighting age was only too anxious to go to the front.

Taking advantage at last of the eagerness of the people to assert the supremacy of our arms, and defend the integrity of the Empire, Government made a number of calls upon the Volunteers and Yeomanry. Of the regulars a sixth division had already been sent out, and a seventh division, with further reinforcements of artillery, including a Howitzer Brigade, was ordered to proceed to South Africa without delay. Volunteers were called for from the Militia, and it was decided to organise a special force from the Yeomanry, to consist of mounted infantry, certain to employ on the field of action all the qualities which distinguish the rural classes in England. One of the most striking incidents of this

exciting period was the way in which the City of London came to the front. Within a very few days a special corps called the City of London Imperial Volunteers was raised, the cost of their equipment being mainly borne by public subscriptions; and again from Australia and Canada eager contingents were despatched, making the total number of men sent to the seat of war from England, India, and the Colonies, no less than one hundred and fifty thousand men.

No such expedition had ever been undertaken by England, or, for the matter of that, by any other country. All this vast army, with its munitions, stores, medical service, and hospitals, had to be transported a distance of seven thousand miles, and, although there were some blunders, and not a few scandals, this stupendous work was carried through with general smoothness and celerity.

Finally, the supreme command was accepted by Lord Roberts, who only a few hours before had received the news of the heroic death at Colenso of Lieut. the Hon. Frederick Roberts, his only

son.

CHAPTER I

C

CAPETOWN TRANSFIGURED

APETOWN wakes up every morning and

rubs its eyes, and stares at itself like a man who sees himself after his hair has turned white overnight. It cannot recognise its own photographs in these closing months of 1899.

It used to be a humdrum little seaport capital, which only woke up when a steamer came in from London, but now it is so full of refugees that the pavements of its main thoroughfare are more crowded than those of Regent Street at four o'clock on a summer afternoon.

There are said to be sixty thousand refugees here from Johannesburg and Kimberley, and they have jumped the city up into the semblance of a western metropolis.

One can see that it must have been an interesting place before the war. It clings to the base of

a towering, naked rock, as the seaweed clutches the small boulders on the beach. Leave out the rock, and Capetown bears much resemblance to Galveston, Texas, or is a little like the European quarter of Bombay.

But you cannot leave out the rock, which hangs in the sky at the end of every inland view. It is a mountain, with its top planed off like a table, and white clouds rolling over it as if the cloth was being laid ever so many times a day for meals for the gods of the Hottentots, who must have nothing else to do than to eat, now that their worshippers have succumbed to the lead and the liquids of the white.

Before the war Capetown held a wonderful mixture of human contrasts-a few thousands of Mahommedan Malays in fezes, a few more thousands of English, and a still larger number of Cape people," who look like negroes, but are a mixture of Dutch, Hottentots, and Bushmen. Dutch is generally heard in the capital, and the colony, because there are five Dutchmen to every four Englishmen here, and the Malays and negroes and their mixtures all think in Dutch.

It is the lingo of the cabbies, newsboys, labourers, servants, street urchins, and of some minor