The great question of reinforcements filled all minds. Nothing indeed could be looked for till they should reach the Cape. Fifteen huge transports were due to arrive between the end of December and the beginning of January, bringing on the scene some 15,000 troops of all arms. The Fifth Division, under Sir Charles Warren, consisting of eight battalions of Infantry and its complement of Artillery and Engineers was expected, also the Household Cavalry Composite Regiment, the 14th Hussars, a siege train, a draft of Marines, and various odd branches of the service. Later on more troops would follow, but pending the arrival of the warrior cargoes it was impossible for our Generals to do more than act on the defensive, and consider themselves fortunate if they could prevent the further advance of the enemy to the south. But the most momentous move of the closing year was the departure of Lord Roberts for the seat of war. Here was this gallant officer, whose life had been devoted to the service of his country, and who was at an age when many other men would have elected to stay by hearth and home, suddenly called on to act in the most difficult and trying crisis. And, in the very hour that he was asked to rouse himself to meet the call of Queen and country, he was dealt a crushing blow. His gallant son, the only one, and one well worthy to have worn the laurels of his noble father, besides adding to them by his own splendid acts, was carried off, a victim to the severe wound he received at Colenso. Here was a supreme trial, so supreme indeed that none dared touch it. All, even Lord Roberts's sincerest friends, shrunk from dwelling on the agony of mind that must have been endured by this great hero when at the same moment the voice of duty and the cry of domestic love jarred in conflict. On the one side he was called upon to brace himself to meet a political situation fraught with all manner of indescribable complications, while on the other, human nature with a thousand clinging tendrils drew him towards the numbness of mute woe or the consolation of private tears. But, like the great warrior he is, he got into harness and started off, leaving his misery in the hands of the great British people, who held it as their own. The "send off" they gave him at Waterloo Station was one of the most remarkable outbursts of public feeling on record, and this was not only due to admiration for the conqueror of Kandahar, but to profound sympathy for the man and the father who was thus laying aside his private self and placing all his magnificent ability at the service of the Empire. DOINGS AT CHIEVELEY