Boers, and prove eventually the source of fame to himself.  Mr. Ronald Moncrieff,[20] an extra A.D.C., was, as usual, not blest with a superabundance of this world’s goods, but had an unending supply of animal spirits, and he was looking forward to a siege as a means of economizing.  Another of our circle was Major Hamilton Gould Adams,[21] Resident Commissioner of the Bechuanaland Protectorate, who commanded the town guard, representing the civil as opposed to the military interests.  In contrast to the usual practice, these departments worked perfectly smoothly together at Mafeking.

Colonel Baden-Powell did not look on my presence with great favour, neither did he order me to leave, and I had a sort of presentiment that I might be useful, considering that there were but three trained nurses in the Victoria Hospital to minister to the needs of the whole garrison.  Therefore, though I talked of going South every day by one of the overcrowded trains to Cape Town, in which the Government was offering free tickets to any who wished to avail themselves of the opportunity, I secretly hoped to be allowed to remain.  We had taken a tiny cottage in the town, and we had all our meals at Dixon’s Hotel, where the food was weird, but where certainly no depression of spirits reigned.  I even bought a white pony, called Dop,[22] from a Johannesburg polo-player, and this pony, one of the best I have ever ridden, had later on some curious experiences.  One day Dr. Jameson arrived on his way to Rhodesia, but he was hustled away with more haste than courtesy by General Baden-Powell, who bluntly told him that if he meant to stay in the town a battery of artillery would be required to defend it; and of field-guns, in spite of urgent representations, not one had reached us from Cape Town.  We used to ride morning and evening on the flat country which surrounds Mafeking, where no tree or hill obscures the view for miles; and one then realized what a tiny place the seat of government of the Bechuanaland Protectorate really was, a mere speck of corrugated iron roofs on the brown expanse of the burnt-up veldt, far away from everywhere.  I think it was this very isolation that created the interest in the siege at home, and one of the reasons why the Boers were so anxious to reduce it was that this town was practically the jumping-off place for the Jameson Raid.  So passed the days till October 13, and then the sword, which had been suspended by a hair, suddenly fell.

On that day Major Gould Adams received a wire from the High Commissioner at Cape Town to the effect that the South African Republic had sent an ultimatum to Her Majesty’s Government, in which it demanded the removal of all troops from the Transvaal borders, fixing five o’clock the following evening as a limit for their withdrawal.  I had delayed my departure too long; it was extremely doubtful whether another train would be allowed to pass South, and, even when started, it would stand a great chance of