oot on his left arm and a polishing brush in
his right hand--going like lightning,--the sweat running down his red
face, is the man who swears he ain't goin' to bother about his
blooming boots any more, dashed if he is; and after the brushing
proceeds to "bone" them violently. The first part of B.-P.'s
exclamation reminds me of a friend who says that ever since he arrived
at years of discretion he has been searching for the man who invented
work on purpose to murder him. He is, of course, the hardest of hard
workers.

There were pleasures as well as drill on board: athletic sports,
tableaux, concerts, and a grand fancy dress ball. At this ball a lady
with a Roman nose appeared as Britannia, but as the peak of the helmet
threatened to bore a hole through the bridge of her nose she was
obliged to wear her war-hat (as the Hussar calls his busby) the wrong
way round. It was probably B.-P. himself who said to the good lady of
her helmet, "That is not the rule, Britannia."

On the 19th May B.-P. looked from his port and saw "the long, flat top
of grand old Table Mountain" looming darkly against the glittering
stars, its base twinkling with electric lights that glinted on the
water. That day was of course a busy one for B.-P. as Chief of the
Staff, and the first news received by the Man of Mafeking (how odd it
seems now!) was that Sir Frederick Carrington had gone up to Mafeking,
and that he was to follow. In three days Baden-Powell was in Mafeking,
the guest of Mr. Julius Weil, who gave an anxious England as much
important news of the gallant little Mafeking garrison during the Boer
war as the universal Reuter himself. Odd, too, it seems that while in
Mafeking in 1896 B.-P. should write in his diary that "Plumer's force,
specially raised here in the South, had got within touch of Buluwayo."
Names how much more familiar in 1900!

Buluwayo was the town selected by the Matabele for their first blow,
and accordingly with Sir Frederick Carrington and two other officers
B.-P. set out from Mafeking on the 23rd May in a ramshackle coach,
drawn by ten mules, on a drive of ten days and nights to Buluwayo. On
this journey the officers encountered the celebrated King Khama, and
it interested B.-P. to find that Khama knew him as the brother of Sir
George Baden-Powell, and that he inquired after Sir George's little
girl, just as a lady in the Park asks if one's baby has got over the
measles. This (if we leave out a dinner at a wayside "