deberg. Their Methodist chaplain, the Rev. Mr
Lane, of Nova Scotia, seemed incontestably built on the same lines; a
conspicuously strong man was he, and delightfully level-headed. I
therefore all the more deeply deplored the early and heavy failure of
his health, as the result of the severe hardships that hang round
every campaigner's path, and his consequent return, invalided home.

[Sidenote: _The Bushmen._.]

About this same time another equally remarkable body, the Australian
Bushmen, who, like the Canadians, had come from worlds unknown, were
in the far north making their way _through_ worlds unknown to the
relief of Mafeking. Their advance, says Conan Doyle, was one of the
finest performances of the war. Assembled at their port of embarkation
by long railway journeys, conveyed across thousands of miles of ocean
to Cape Town, brought round another two thousand to Beira, transferred
by a narrow gauge railway to Bamboo Creek, thence by a broader gauge
to Marandellas, sent on in coaches for hundreds of miles to Bulawayo,
again transferred by trains for another four or five hundred miles to
Ootsi, and then facing a further march of a hundred miles, they
reached the hamlet of Masibi Stadt within an hour of the arrival of
Plumer's relieving columns; and before that week was over the whole
Empire was thrilled, almost to the point of delirium, by learning that
at last the long-drawn siege of Mafeking was raised; and a defence of
almost unexampled heroism was thus brought to a triumphant end.

[Sidenote: _The Australian Chaplains._]

From start to finish the Bushmen were accompanied by an earnest
Methodist chaplain, whom I met only in Pretoria, the Rev. James Green,
who, most fortunately, throughout the whole campaign, was not laid
aside for a single day by wounds or sickness; and who, after returning
home with this time-expired first contingent of Australian troops,
came back in March 1902 with what, we hope, the speedy ending of the
war will make their last contingent.

Between Mr Green's two terms of service I was, however, ably assisted
by yet another Australian Wesleyan chaplain, the Rev. R. G. Foreman,
though he, like so many others, was early invalided home.

CHAPTER IV

QUICK MARCH TO THE TRANSVAAL

It was with feelings of unfeigned delight that the Guards learned May
Day was to witness the beginning of another great move towards
Pretoria. We had entered Bloemfontein without expending upon it a
sin