The Italian Legion was commanded by a man who loved war and warfare.  Camillo Richiardi and General Louis Botha were probably the two handsomest men in the army, and both were the idols of their men.  Captain Richiardi had his first experience of war in Abyssinia, when he fought with the Italian army.  When the Philippine war began he joined the fortunes of Aguinaldo, and became the leader of the foreign legion.  For seven months he fought against the American soldiers, not because he hated the Americans, but because he loved fighting more.  When the Boer war seemed to promise more exciting work Richiardi left Aguinaldo’s forces and joined a Boer commando as a burgher.  After studying Boer methods for several months he formed an organisation of scouts which was of great service to the army.  Before the relief of Ladysmith the Italian Scouts was the ablest organisation of the kind in the Republics.

The Scandinavian corps joined Cronje’s army after the outbreak of war, and took part in the battle of Magersfontein on December 11th.  The corps occupied one of the most exposed positions during that battle and lost forty-five of the fifty-two men engaged.  Commandant Flygare was shot in the abdomen and was being carried off the field by Captain Barendsen when a bullet struck the captain in the head and killed him instantly.  Flygare extricated himself from beneath Barendsen’s body, rose, and led his men in a charge.  When he had proceeded about twenty yards a bullet passed through his head, and his men leapt over his corpse only to meet a similar fate a few minutes later.

CHAPTER X

BOER WOMEN IN THE WAR

One of the most glorious pages in the history of the Boer nation relates to the work of the women who fought side by side with their husbands against the hordes of murderous Zulus in the days of the early Voortrekkers.  It is the story of hardy Boer women, encompassed by thousands of bloodthirsty natives, fighting over the lifeless bodies of their husbands and sons, and repelling the attacks of the savages with a spirit and strength not surpassed by the valiant burghers themselves.  The magnificent heritage which these mothers of the latter-day Boer nation left to their children was not unworthily borne by the women of the end of the century, and the work which they accomplished in the war of 1899-1900 was none the less valuable, even though it was less hazardous and romantic, than that of their ancestors whose blood mingled with that of the savages on the grassy slopes of the Natal mountains.

[Illustration:  MRS. GENERAL LUCAS J. MEYER]