ly average
mail from England as 184,000 letters and 143,600 packets of printed
matter: the total number of letters for the year ended March 31, 1902,
was 10,774,000 outward, and 8,372,000 homeward, showing a decrease
compared with previous returns. During the same period 528,000 parcels
were sent out.

The last official reference to the Army Postal Service in South
Africa is contained in the forty-ninth (1903) report, announcing its
withdrawal, postal communications with the troops still on service
in the old colonies and the new ones being carried on through the
Colonial Post Offices under the ordinary regulations. The Peace was
declared May 31, 1902.

The war in South Africa left its impress on many pages of the stamp
collector's album, but at this juncture we are chiefly concerned with
the immediate work of the British military postal service. Collectors
have followed the use of the stamps of the home country into the
distant fields of operations by means of the various postmarks which
are summarised as follows from the collection of Captain Guy R.
Crouch, of the Oxford and Bucks Light Infantry[3]:

[Footnote 3: _The Postage Stamp_, vol. XIV., pp. 234-237.]

[Illustration: 24 25 26 27]

Type 1 (_Fig._ 24). Office Numbers from 1 to 56, and 100. Used also
at Cape Town base with initials BO (Base Office) and an asterisk
(sometimes omitted) in lieu of the office number. Also at sub-base
offices with larger office numerals 1 to 9.

Type 2 (_Figs._ 25, 26). Commonly without the year being noted, as in
the first illustration but also found with the year as in the second
illustration of this mark. It has been largely supposed, but without
much, if any, foundation that these year-less marks originated in
Ladysmith during the siege, but little correspondence can have been
passed out of the town during that period, and the origin of many of
these marks is known _not_ to have been Ladysmith.

[Illustration: 28 29 30 31 32]

Type 3 (_Fig._ 27). Used in sub-offices supplementary to type 1, found
stamped in blue-green as well as in black. Office numbers 41-60.

Type 4 (_Fig._ 28). Used in Base Office at Cape Town.

Type 5 (_Fig._ 29). A locally made rubber-stamp cancellation found in
several sub-varieties.

Type 6 (_Fig._ 30). Used in the field post offices attached to the
Natal Field Force with name of place or number.

Type 7 is similar to type 2 but lettered NATAL FIELD FORCE, found in
black and in violet.

Typ