f defence. In this he had immense assistance from Benjamin Weil,
a well known South African contractor, who had shown great energy in
provisioning the town. On the other hand, the South African Government
displayed the same stupidity or treason which had been exhibited in the
case of Kimberley, and had met all demands for guns and reinforcements
with foolish doubts as to the need of such precautions. In the endeavour
to supply these pressing wants the first small disaster of the campaign
was encountered. On October 12th, the day after the declaration of war,
an armoured train conveying two 7-pounders for the Mafeking defences was
derailed and captured by a Boer raiding party at Kraaipan, a place forty
miles south of their destination. The enemy shelled the shattered train
until after five hours Captain Nesbitt, who was in command, and his
men, some twenty in number, surrendered. It was a small affair, but
it derived importance from being the first blood shed and the first
tactical success of the war.

The garrison of the town, whose fame will certainly live in the history
of South Africa, contained no regular soldiers at all with the exception
of the small group of excellent officers. They consisted of irregular
troops, three hundred and forty of the Protectorate Regiment, one
hundred and seventy Police, and two hundred volunteers, made up of that
singular mixture of adventurers, younger sons, broken gentlemen, and
irresponsible sportsmen who have always been the voortrekkers of
the British Empire. These men were of the same stamp as those other
admirable bodies of natural fighters who did so well in Rhodesia, in
Natal, and in the Cape. With them there was associated in the defence
the Town Guard, who included the able-bodied shopkeepers, businessmen,
and residents, the whole amounting to about nine hundred men. Their
artillery was feeble in the extreme, two 7-pounder toy guns and six
machine guns, but the spirit of the men and the resource of their
leaders made up for every disadvantage. Colonel Vyvyan and Major Panzera
planned the defences, and the little trading town soon began to take on
the appearance of a fortress.

On October 13th the Boers appeared before Mafeking. On the same day
Colonel Baden-Powell sent two truckloads of dynamite out of the
place. They were fired into by the invaders, with the result that they
exploded. On October 14th the pickets around the town were driven in by
the Boers. On this the armo