rapid retreats therefrom if seriously threatened. This power of rapid movement incidental to all being mounted gives them great advantage, increasing their powers of offence and defence, and representing the crux of their theories of war. The Boer carries on his horse one hundred rounds of ammunition, and rations of sun-dried beef sufficient for four days. The horses feed upon the veldt. In four days the Boer can cover two hundred miles, and it is this ability to move from point to point with extraordinary despatch, that makes the Boer force a body of mounted infantrymen possessing great strategical value. It has been impossible not to admire the tactics which the Boers have pursued in investing Mafeking, and where they have detached a force for any special purpose the execution of their work has been accomplished with laudable celerity. They dismantle and re-set, at an emplacement some miles away, their big Creusot gun--a process which seldom occupies them longer than between dusk and dawn; sometimes we see them moving their guns northwards, and hear from natives that they arrived at a point some thirty miles from Mafeking by daybreak. It may be that in respect to the mobility of their forces we have much to learn, and let us at least profit by the lessons which are thus afforded us. CHAPTER XXXIII TWO HUNDRED DAYS OF SIEGE MAFEKING, _April 15th, 1900_. There is now happily no longer any doubt of the truth of the native reports of important successes having befallen our arms in the vicinity of Kimberley. We hear with infinite rejoicing that Kimberley has pulled through, and is no longer invested by the enemy, and almost so soon as these tidings reached us, natives brought in the unconfirmed news of the capture of Cronje. This has since been officially published, and the garrison here is beginning to feel at last that their turn is about to come! We have waited long for this moment, passing many black hours in the interval, but even now it seems that the power of England may be successfully defied by these federated South African Republicans. Yet we hope and, in the changing of the fortunes which we anticipate, we express and share in the felicitous congratulations which the Empire is offering to Lord Roberts. The shrewdness and tactical genius of this gallant veteran has been a source from which the entire garrison has drawn an inspiring hope which encouraged one and all to resist to the uttermost the attacks of the Boers.