reparedness.]

Five years later he described himself as an "incorrigible optimist."
Optimist or not, at this time he harboured no illusions. He knew that
the postponement or neglect of military preparations had left
thousands of loyal subjects of the Crown in a position of entire
defencelessness, and made rebellion easy for thousands of the
disaffected Dutch. The first days of war, like the last days of peace,
were punctuated by appeals for the troops that should have been in
South Africa, but were in England; or for guns, rifles, and ammunition
which Mr. Schreiner had kept idle in the colonial armouries until it
was too late. On Friday, October 13th, he held a long and anxious
consultation over the wires with Colonel Kekewich at Kimberley. A
thousand rifles were wanted, and wanted instantly. The Cape Artillery
15-pounders, reluctantly conceded at the last moment by Mr. Schreiner,
had not come. They never came, for the next day Kimberley was cut off,
and by Sunday morning Capetown had lost count of the border districts
from Kimberley southward to Orange River. On this Friday the first
definite piece of bad news reached the High Commissioner. An armoured
train, trying to run back to Mafeking, had been captured by the Boers.
In proportion as Lord Milner had urged the need of preparation for
war, so now he was the first to realise how grave would be the results
of unpreparedness. Fortunately, his comments upon the events of these
first three months of the war have been preserved; and the record of
what was passing in his mind from day to day reveals a burden of
anxiety that contrasts sharply with the easy tolerance with which the
first bad news was received in England. On Wednesday, the 18th, a week
after the ultimatum had expired, he wrote of Natal: "We are being
slowly surrounded, and our force unwisely split up." He was gravely
concerned for the safety of Kimberley, and he "doubted the ability of
Mafeking to hold out." On November 1st, the day after General Buller
had landed at Capetown, he wrote: "Things are going from bad to worse
to-day. In Natal the Orange Free State Boers are making a move on
Colenso, while in the Colony they have crossed in force at Bethulie;
and there is also some suspicion of an attack on the line between
Orange River bridge and De Aar." On November 9th, the arrival of the
_Rosslyn Castle_, the first of the Army Corps transports, brought a
gleam of brightness. She was a little late, as she had b