ects, although she ignored them. Lady Chesham
was no less energetic a worker, and had as an additional anxiety the
fact of her husband and son[42] being both at the front. It was
imperative that one of these two ladies, who were responsible for
starting the fund, should personally superintend the erection and the
opening of the large base hospital at Deelfontein, and as Lady Georgiana
Curzon had made herself almost indispensable in London by her adroitness
in managing already sorely harassed War Office officials, and in
keeping her committee unanimous and contented, it was decided that Lady
Chesham should proceed to the scene of the war. My sister gladly gave up
this stirring role for the more prosaic, but equally important, work in
London, and when I returned home, in July, 1900, I found her still
completely absorbed by her self-imposed task. Already her health was
failing, and overtaxed nature was having its revenge. During the next
two years, in spite of repeated warnings and advice, she gave herself no
rest, but all the while she cherished the wish to pay a visit to that
continent which had been the theatre of her great enterprise. At length,
in August, 1902, in the week following the coronation of Their
Majesties, we sailed together for Cape Town, a sea-voyage having been
recommended to her in view of her refusal to try any of the foreign
health-resorts, which might have effected a cure. By the death of her
father-in-law, my sister was then Lady Howe, but it will be with her old
name of Lady Georgiana Curzon or "Lady Georgie"--as she was known to her
intimates--that the task she achieved will ever be associated.

More than seven years had elapsed since my first visit, and nearly
twenty-six months from the time I had left South Africa in the July
following the termination of the Mafeking siege, when I found myself
back in the old familiar haunts. Groot Schuurr had never looked more
lovely than on the sunny September morning when we arrived there from
the mail-steamer, after a tedious and annoying delay in disembarking of
several hours, connected with permits under martial law. This delay was
rendered more aggravating by the fact that, on the very day of our
arrival,[43] the same law ceased to exist, and that our ship was the
last to have to submit to the ordeal. Many and sad were the changes that
had come to pass in the two years, and nowhere did they seem more
evident than when one crossed the threshold of Mr. Rhode