"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 (Lieutenant) 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 bade 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." For readers who require further details of the Army Post Office arrangements during the Boer War, it may be mentioned that the contemporary reports of the Postmaster-General contain very full and interesting accounts. Such reports, if out of print, can usually be perused in the better-class public libraries. The stamps which franked the soldiers' letters were usually of the British lilac penny variety, bearing the familiar head of Queen Victoria, whilst the obliterations were circular or hexagonal, and contained the inscription "Army Post Office, South Africa." But the bulk of the letters reached England with no adhesive stamp, the words, "On Active Service, no Stamps Available," proving a sufficient passport in cases where supplies were genuinely unprocurable. Envelopes which are stampless, but which bear one or other of the South African field postmarks, command a fair value, and copies should figure in every collection specially devoted to war stamps. When Bloemfontein fell into the hands of the British the stock of Orange Free State adhesives was overprinted V.R.I. and, later on, E.R.I., and when the Union Jack was unfurled in Pretoria the stamps of the South African Republic were provided with similar overprints. All these labels were used by the civilians as well as the military authorities; and as many of the soldiers posted their communications in the ordinary letter-boxes, it is impossible to decide which possess a war interest and which do not. Among the most treasured adhesives provided by the South African War are the "Mafeking Besieged" issues. As is well known, certain of these were produced by a photographic process and revealed the portrait of General Baden-Powell. Gibbons urges collectors to be wary in purchasing copies, as numerous well-executed forgeries emanated from Kimberley and Cape Town, and many officers and men returning home from the front were swindled by the dishonest dealers. [Illustration: SOME HISTORIC POST-MARKS USED ON MILITARY CORRESPONDENCE.