mails were made up in the London G.P.O. in
special bags addressed to the Army Post Office, and sent to the G.P.O.
at Cape Town, in which building the detachment of the Army Postal
Corps under Captain Price had established its base office. The bags
containing military mails were handed over to the Army Base Post
Office at Cape Town whence they were distributed to the various
military post offices established at the centres of the troops, and to
field post offices with each Brigade or Division in the field. In the
return direction the soldiers' letters were handed in at field post
offices and forwarded through various channels, sometimes ordinary
and ofttimes military to the base at Cape Town, whence they were
despatched to England in the ordinary way.

Early in 1900 the average weekly mail from London to the Field Forces
was 150 bags of letters, postcards, etc., and 60 boxes of parcels; the
incoming mail from the Field Forces was 11 bags of letters per week.
In a letter dated from Cape Town, February 27, from Lieutenant Preece,
who went out with reinforcements for the Army Post Office Corps in
February, are some interesting glimpses of the difficulties of the
work of this service[2]:

"Price, of the Post Office Corps, met us and told us (Captain)
Palmer was to leave at once for Kimberley with 17 men
(Captain) Labouchere and (Lieut.) Curtis to proceed on to
Natal with 50 men, and I was to take the remainder ashore here
(Cape Town) and stop to help at the base. At 9.30 on Monday
morning I marched off with my 57 men to the main barracks and
bid good-bye to the good ship 'Canada' and her merry cargo.
After lodging the men in barracks I went off to the G.P.O.,
where I found Price and his 40 men ensconced in one huge wing,
overwhelmed with work, and at breaking-down point. The mails
every week increase now, and we have 250,000 pieces of mail
matter to sort and distribute every week, over a country
larger than France, among a shifting population of soldiers,
each of whom expects to get his letters as easily as he gets
his rations. It is a vast job, and we have done wonderfully
so far with a totally inadequate staff. We have come in
the nick of time. The recent movements (the advance of Lord
Roberts from Modder River, relief of Ladysmith, etc.) have
caused chaos among our mails. We receive and send telegrams
every hour either to a field post offi