BADEN-POWELL by E. E. REYNOLDS

FOR his services in Ashanti, B.-P. was promoted at the age of 39 to Brevet-Lieutenant-Colonel. He re rejoined his regiment in Belfast, but within a few weeks he was once more gazetted for special service --- this time in Matabeleland for what he afterwards called 'the best adventure of my life'.

The Matabele Rebellion was the result of a number of contributory causes which separately would not have occasioned an armed rising. This warrior tribe, an offshoot of the Zulus, had only occupied their territory beyond the Limpopo for some fifty years before J. S. Moffatt (Livingstone's brother-in-law) had his first interview with Lobengula, the second Chief of the tribe. This is not the place even to sketch the series of manoeuvres which resulted in the dispossession of the land before what is usually termed 'the inexorable force of civilization'. Not that much pity need be wasted on Lobengula; in spite of efforts to portray him as the noble savage, he was merciless to his subjects and pitiless towards his enemies; the fact that he showed political skill of a higher order gave him prestige amongst white men who were more interested in winning concessions by cunning than in spreading culture.

With the death of Lobengula in 1894, during the Matabele War, the country lay open to the settlers and prospectors, and so the Southern. Rhodesia of to-day had its birth. Cowed by the death of their Chief and of thousands of their finest warriors, the Matabele appeared to accept the new order, but a series of disasters roused what spirit had not been crushed in a last attempt to expel the white man from their territory. An outbreak of the rinderpest at the beginning of 1896 meant that cattle --- the natives' chief wealth --- had to be slaughtered; workers were needed on farms and in mines, and the measures taken to get enough labour were often indistinguishable from those of the Press Gang; a plague of locusts added to the distress by ruining crops and pasture. Then came the Jameson Raid; the Matabele heard that the white soldiers who had defeated them had not proved invincible and had been captured by the Boers. Moreover, large numbers of the Rhodesian Horse --- which Jameson later admitted had been formed less for protecting Rhodesia than for possible action in the Transvaal --- had been withdrawn for the Raid. The Native Police remaining proved unreliable. Disaffection was further fomented by the witchdoctors or priests of the M'Limo (or god); to them the continued presence of the white settlers meant a loss of influence or prestige..

It appears that the full rising was planned for the night of the full moon, 28th March, when the 'Great Dance' would be held, but on the 20th March there was a clash between some villagers and the Native Police, and this set the whole country ablaze. Mining camps, stores and farms were attacked and the white inhabitants bludgeoned to death. Bulawayo was threatened, but the leader of the Matabele, Mlugulu, left open the road south; he assumed that the white population would want to retreat as quickly as possible, and his purpose was mainly to get them out of the country. The settlers fortified Bulawayo as well as they could, and relief parties, under men like the hunter Selous, rode out to bring in women and children from the farms.

The country was controlled by the British South Africa Company, and there were no Imperial troops available. The High Commissioner at Cape Town saw that help was needed and he commissioned Major Herbert Plumer to raise the Matabeleland Relief Force. He set to work at once at Mafeking (then the end of the railway line) to recruit his men, but it was not until the 14th May that he entered Bulawayo with nearly a thousand men. Cecil Rhodes had arrived a month previously.

Meantime it had been decided that Imperial forces would be needed, and Major-General Sir Frederick Carrington was put in command, with B.-P. as his Chief of Staff. Carrington sailed for South Africa on the 28th April, and B.-P. followed on the 2nd May, on board the Tantallon Castle with 480 mounted infantry under Colonel Alderson, who recorded that 'the voyage was a very pleasant, if an uneventful one; we did our best to keep the men fit by arranging for regular exercise for them, getting up athletics, tugs of war, and concerts, Baden-Powell invariably bringing down the house at the latter'.

From Cape Town the party set off at once by rail to Mafeking, and from thence to Bulawayo; this meant a journey of 557 miles by coach, described by B.-P. as 'a regular Buffalo-Bill-Wild-West-Deadwood affair'; they left Mafeking on the 23rd May and reached Bulawayo on the 3rd June 1896.

The position was far from pleasant. Bulawayo was practically besieged and rations were short. One entry in B.-P.'s diary makes this clear:

Lunch is scarcely a pleasant meal, either to look forward to or look back on, consisting, as it generally does, of hashed leather which has. probably got rinderpest, no vegetables, and liquid refreshment at prohibitive prices, that is local beer at two shillings a glass. I live on bread, jam, and coffee, and that costs five shillings a meal and prices are rising. Early this morning I picked up two other fellows and we rode on to inspect the country between the centre and west of the enemy's position. At Jozans' Kraal, about four miles north of the enemy, we stopped to talk, to get news, and to have lunch. Lunch was got for us by our host Jozans as follows: a live sheep was brought and laid before us on some leafy twigs. Its throat was then cut, the liver taken out and fried in an iron bowl. Of this we made our meal without any bread or other concomitants except salt, which was supplied by a human salt cellar for us. We took our salt by dipping each his hunk of meat into the nigger's grimy palm.

So far the local white men with Plumer's Force had managed to keep the rebellion within bounds, but the difficulties of the operations were considerable. Major Callwell in his Small Wars (1899 ed.) sums up the problems in the following passage:

The suppression of the rebellion in Southern Rhodesia in 1896 affords an admirable illustration of the right method of dealing with guerrilla warriors of a certain type. The Matabile, conquered and deprived of leadership and cohesion, were not in themselves a formidable fighting race, and they eschewed fighting in the open except on one or two occasions during the prolonged operations; the Mashonas were still less warlike. But the territory affected was of vast extent, the available British forces were small, and certain large tracts of country were singularly well adapted for the display of guerrilla tactics by nimble savages such as were the insurgents. The troops employed to stamp out the revolt were for the most part mounted, but they were assisted by dismounted friendlies. They were broken up by General Carrington into mobile columns, varying in strength according to the task set before them, but often consisting of only a mere handful of men. Although the food supply of these in their rapid movements over great distances sometimes proved a difficulty, the fine climate and open air life rendered all ranks capable of enduring great fatigues and of covering an immense amount of ground within the 24 hours. Some portable guns and maxims were available and accompanied the more important columns, rendering useful service. The principle enforced. and rigidly carried out, was that each column had some definite task to perform, and must push through with it in spite of distance and of natural obstacles.

B.-P.'s work as Chief of Staff was heavy. It meant long hours of office work drawing up instructions, and organizing the innumerable details necessary for the carrying out of the general plan of campaign. He was a master at writing precise instructions. Thus Colonel Alderson notes on one occasion, 'Colonel Baden-Powell handed me what must be a quite unique specimen of the multum in parvo sort of instructions. They were exactly seven short lines in length, but contained all one wanted to know, and in other things left me a free hand.' But he added to all this the work of scouting for information. At that time the need for accurate scouting, especially in campaigns of the Matabele type, was not fully recognized. There was no corps of scouts available; for a time they had the expert services of Major F. C. Burnham, the famous American scout, who later was to be Chief of Scouts to Lord Roberts. B.-P. described his association with Burnham in the following note:

I was on the staff of General Sir F. Carrington. We had only arrived at Bulawayo a few days previously when on the 5th June, just as we were going to bed, Sir Charles Metcalfe called in with Burnham to report that there was an Army of the enemy close by, not three miles outside the tent. This seemed to be. so improbable that we could not believe it even though reported by this celebrated American Scout. However he soon cured any doubts by taking me to the spot and there they were right enough. During the night we collected a force and took them with success at dawn.

After that Burnham and I had several scouting trips together against the Matabele, and in the course of these I learned a lot from him, especially from his experience of the Red Indians and their methods. Owing to his wonderfully quick eye in taking 'sign' whether far away or close by, I gave him the nickname of 'Hawk Eye', and he gave me the name of Sherlock for piecing together the meaning of the sign after he had discovered it. So we worked in close accord with the happiest results.

We only differed in one detail, and that was the pace at which to ride one's horse. He maintained that to walk and go slow saved the horse. I held that to loup fairly fast over the open ground and to halt when under cover was the better way. And neither of us convinced the other.

Many a night B.-P. would spend up in the Matoppo Hills reconnoitring the enemy, and snatching a few hours' sleep before returning to his office work. No wonder the Matabele called him 'Impeesa', the Wolf that never sleeps. On longer expeditions he would have as his companion Jan Grootboom, a Zulu, who was later to play his part in bringing Rhodes and the rebels to palaver. On one occasion at least a white man went with B.-P. The account Vere Stent, the war correspondent, wrote of this experience is not without humour.

I next met B.-P. in Matabeleland, where, in 1896, he acted as Chief of Staff to Sir Frederick Carrington, sent by the Imperial Government to suppress the rebellion and restore the authority of the white man at Bulawayo. It was in that campaign that B.-P. developed his instinct for scouting. Wearing soft rubber-soled shoes, he used to spend his nights prowling about the Matoppos, spying on the rebels, calculating their numbers and locating their camping grounds. On four separate occasions he led Plumer's troops to attack rebel strongholds in the hills, and on every occasion he brought us out right on top of the enemy. surprising the Matabele and enabling Plumer to give him what the latter used to describe as 'a good knock'.

One night, after much persuading, he took me with him. We left Plumer's camp at about 9 o'clock. Walking with an easy swing, B.-P. stepped out into the darkness. Soon we were amidst the great giant boulders of the Matoppos, where he seemed completely at home. He led me by a rough footpath on to a kop. Peering over this, we could see, not 500 yards distant, the fires of an impi. Signing to me to be silent, we watched a few minutes and then, on a sign from Baden-Powell, we moved off by another path. 'Never return by the same road you took.' This has become a scouting platitude, but in the Matoppos it was a very necessary precaution. It was with a sigh of relief that I found myself once more safely in Plumer's camp. Once was enough. I never asked to be taken again.

Plumer's tribute may also be recorded:

To me personally he had rendered the most cordial co-operation and assistance, for which I can never be sufficiently grateful, and the success of the various operations in the hills was unquestionably due in no small measure to his able reconnoitring, and the wonderful knowledge he had acquired of all the intricacies of the fastnesses of the hills.

Several of the maps which enabled Plumer to get at the rebels were drawn by B.-P. from his own observations; they always proved accurate. The Matabele Campaign was the first occasion that B.-P. and Plumer were in the field together; they became lifelong friends as a result of the experience.

Occasionally B.-P. would take charge of some operation --- for the nature of such warfare meant that simultaneously there might be half a dozen or more actions taking place over a widely scattered area. The following record by a trooper gives an interesting glimpse of one of these skirmishes.

On our journey up to Mashonaland in 1897 from Bulawayo, we had a deal of trouble with one of the Native Chiefs, who was firmly lodged with his followers in a rocky kopjie. Our Colonel, Harold Paget, sent into Bulawayo for a gun of some sort, and after a while who should come to our little column --- about 100 men with native levies --- with an old 7 pounder- but Colonel Baden-Powell and the escort, mostly natives. When we first saw him we were rather astonished for he was remarkably dressed. He wore the typical 'Baden-Powell' hat, a blazing red shirt with a large neckerchief, the knot at the back, breeches and leather gaiters, in which was a sort of pocket containing a revolver, so that when mounted on his pony he only had to stoop down to draw a revolver from either leg. Colonel Baden-Powell being posted to our column, and being senior to our Colonel took over command and started to 'smarten us up'. The first order was that no man was to take his boots off at night. when we rolled ourselves up in our blankets. To enforce this he used in the middle of the night to come around the sleeping men and tap the bottoms of our blankets with his cane, to see whether we had our boots on or not. We got cunning eventually and used to take off our boots and put them at the bottom of our blanket, so that if they were tapped all would be well.

My absolute personal recollection of the Colonel was this. As usual we camped near water; two or three mornings after he joined us I with others was washing myself at the stream (Spruit) when 'Ye Gods' the 'bloke' next to me was lathering himself with 'scented soap'.

Being terribly anxious to have a decent wash I asked him for a rub of his soap. 'Certainly,' he said, through the lather on his face, and handed me the cake, and didn't I make much of it. After my wash I looked to see who it was with soap. when lo! and behold it was our new Commandant. I apologized. 'It's quite all right,' he said, 'I hope you enjoyed your wash.' The last I saw of the Colonel was he was sitting on a rock sketching after our skirmish at Enkledoorn where he left us.

An extract from the diary shows that such expeditions could be far from pleasant.

This morning we marched at five, following the course of the river and intending to make a short cut to Shangani River as all maps, though differing in other details, showed this to be possible. However, we did not find it possible. We struck out boldly into the forest and marched along at our best speed which was not very great. Gradually the heat of the day began to affect the horses. Again we were on foot, leading and driving them through the heavy sand, but after going about six miles we saw it would be impossible to reach the Shangani River that day. We had already abandoned two horses and several others seemed to be quite done up. Our only chance now was to hark back to the Gwelo River. Another unpleasant item had been added to our experience this morning and that was to find that the carcases of the several Koodoos were lying there which had evidently died of rinderpest, so that there was little hope for us of getting fresh meat by shooting game in this district. I therefore gave orders that one of the horses should be shot, cut up and issued as rations.... We halted at midday for our rest and meal during the heat of the day, and this was our menu: weak tea (can't afford it strong); no sugar (we are out of it); a little bread (we have half a pound a day); Irish stew (consisting of a slab of horse boiled in muddy water with a pinch of rice and a half pinch of pea flour); salt, none. For a plate I used one of my gaiters ... Then on again ... on and on till past midnight; and by one in the morning we reckoned we had done about 8 miles. But we ought, according to the map, to have struck the Shangani long ere this. But no Shangani nor any sign of it was in sight, so calling a halt, I told Poore to rest the men and horses while Gielgud, who was an old American Scout, and I went ahead to see if we could find the river within a reasonable distance.... On and on we went until we calculated we had done another nine miles, but never a sign of water. The moon was then getting low and we agreed that the only thing to be done was to turn back while there was yet sufficient light to see the track to rejoin the patrol and to turn them back once more to the Gwelo River. We had not gone very far on our way back when the moon went down and left us in the dark. But it only wanted a quarter of an hour to dawn, so we made a fire and boiled our cocoa in the rest of the water which we had in our water bottles, and in the course of the operation I fell fast asleep. Then on again but without much hope of success. . . . Poor Gielgud was now asleep on his horse. I was leading the way back and his horse following mine wearily, when I chanced to notice on the ground the place where a buck had been scratching in the sand. I thought to myself that he would not scratch there for nothing, so dismounting I continued the scratching with my hands and after digging for some time 1 came to damp ground and a little deeper the water began to ooze in. Then I saw two pigeons fly up from behind a rock a short distance from me and going there I found a little pool of water.... An hour later we had got our party there, off saddled for the day, and here I am under my blanket shelter --- a scorching hot day, flies innumerable which are stopping all our efforts to sleep and the prospect of another night march before us.

One of the flying-columns B.-P. led was against Uwini, one of the witch-doctors of the M'Limo, who had taken refuge with a band of warriors in a group of kopjes with the usual maze of caves and underground passages. Early in the fight Uwini was captured, and B.-P. decided to court-martial him at once. He was condemned and immediately executed. As a result Uwini's followers surrendered and undoubtedly the loss of many more lives was thus prevented. But the High Commissioner at the Cape took exception to B.-P.'s action and ordered Sir Frederick Carrington to have his Chief Staff Officer arrested and tried by court-martial. In place of this extreme measure Carrington set up a Court of Enquiry which, after investigating the circumstances fully, acquitted B.-P. on the grounds that 'the military exigencies of the circumstances in which Lt.-Colonel Baden-Powell found himself at the time of Uwini's capture were such as to call for strong measures, and subsequent events have clearly proved that the prompt punishment at his own stronghold, of Uwini, as a powerful and notorious instigator of crime and rebellion, exercised a very wholesome influence on the surrounding district and undoubtedly expedited its final pacification'.

In one action in Mashonoland B.-P. displayed that skill in bluff for which he gained such a reputation. The following account is taken from Major Callwell's Small Wars (1899 ed):

It was during one of these expeditions that B.-P. came into possession of a koodoo horn which --- with Dinuzulu's necklace --- was to play a part in the future. He had followed up some parties of the enemy into the Somabula Forest, and surprised their headquarters in the bush. In their hurry to escape, the leaders left behind them a koodoo horn which was used to call their men together and to give the alarm. B.-P. brought the horn home, and twelve years later it was to be used for a very different purpose.

The story of the conclusion of the Matabele Rebellion --- apart from the troubles in Mashonaland which dragged on for some months --- is well known. In August Jan Grootboom, the scout, found that there was a disposition for peace amongst the Matabele leaders. When Rhodes heard this he sent Grootboom to them to suggest an Indaba. After some delay, this was agreed to, and Rhodes accompanied by Dr. Sauer, Captain Colenbrander and Vere Stent, the war correspondent, went out unarmed to meet the leaders. The discussions went on for some hours, but at length terms were agreed upon, and the rebellion was at an end. During this period B.-P. was down with dysentery, and so he missed these negotiations. One comment he made later was that the Indaba 'has been made by some of Cecil Rhodes's biographers a rather more dramatic affair than the actual facts of the case warranted'. Here it may be noted that none of his references to Rhodes was made in that vein of fulsome praise which was so common at that time. He respected Rhodes as an Empire Builder, but there were reservations, probably due to the fact that B.-P. was not interested in high finance or sharp commercialism.

The Matabele Rebellion was not a big affair, but it meant a great deal in B.-P.'s training as a scout. This comes out very clearly in his account, The Matabele Campaign, published in 1897. The book was based on the letter-diaries sent regularly to his mother and is illustrated with many of his own sketches. In some ways it is the best of his writings; it is very readable and is full of life. He urges in it the importance of scout training in the army. In one letter he wrote:

There should have been no reason for my going out to get information in this way had we had reliable native spies or fully trained white scouts. But we find that these friendly natives are especially useless, as they have neither the pluck nor the energy for the work, and at best are given to exaggerating and lying; and our white scouts, though keen and plucky as lions, have never been trained in the necessary intricacies of mapping and reporting. Thus, it has now fallen to my lot to be employed on these most interesting little expeditions.

Under present conditions we, staff and special service officers, have to turn our hand to every kind of job as occasion demands, and one man has to do the ordinary work of half a dozen different offices. It is as though, the personnel of a railway having been suddenly reduced by influenza or other plague just when the bank holiday traffic was on, a few trained staff were got from another company temporarily to work it. We find a number of porters, station-masters, cleaners, firemen, etc., available, but we have to put in a lot of odd work ourselves to make the thing run; at one minute doing the traffic management, at the next driving an engine, here superintending clearing-house business, then acting as pointsman, and so on.

But he certainly had no personal regrets in being forced to do much of the scouting himself, for what he learned was to be the basis of much of his later achievement. One or two passages will bring out the character of the work.

A small instance will show my meaning as to what information can be read from trifling signs.

The other day, when out with my native scout, we came on a few downtrodden blades of common grass; this led us on to footprints in a sandy patch of ground. They were those of women or boys (judging from the size) on a long journey (they wore sandals), going towards the Matoppos. Suddenly my boy gave a 'How!' of surprise, and ten yards off the track he picked up a leaf --- it was the leaf of a tree that did not grow about here, but some ten or fifteen miles away; it was damp, and smelt of Kaffir beer. From these signs it was evident that women had been carrying beer from the place where the trees grew towards the Matoppos (they stuff up the mouth of the beer-pots with leaves), and they had passed this way at four in the morning (a strong breeze had been blowing about that hour, and the leaf had evidently been blown ten yards away). This would bring them to the Matoppos about five o'clock. The men would not delay to drink up the fresh beer, and would by this time be very comfortable, not to say half-stupid, and the reverse of on the qui vive; so that we were able to go and reconnoitre more nearly with impunity --- all on the strength of information given by bruised grass and a leaf....

But, as I have said above, such reconnaissance can often be carried out the most effectually by single reconnoitrers or scouts. And a peace training of such men is very important.

Without special training a man cannot have a thorough confidence in himself as a scout, and without an absolute confidence in himself, it is not of the slightest use for a man to think of going out to scout.

Development of the habits of noting details and of reasoning inductively constitute the elements of the required training. This can be carried out equally in the most civilized as in the wildest countries --- although for its complete perfecting a wild country is preferable. It is to a large extent the development of the science of woodcraft in a man --that is, the art of noticing smallest details, and of connecting their meaning, and thus gaining a knowledge of the ways and doings of your quarry; the education of your 'eye-for-a-country'; and the habit of looking out on your own account. Once these have become, from continual practice, a second nature to a man, he has but to learn the more artificial details of what is required to report, and the best method of doing so, to become a full-fledged scout.

We English have the talent of woodcraft and the spirit of adventure and independence already inborn in our blood to an extent to which no other nationality can lay claim, and therefore among our soldiers we ought to find the best material in the world for scouts. Were we to take this material and rightly train it in that art whose value has been denoted in the term 'half the battle', we ought to make up in useful men much of our deficiency in numbers.

Houdini, the conjurer, educated the prehensibility of his son's mind by teaching him, in progressive lessons, to be able to recapitulate the contents of a shop window after a single look at it; there is the first stage of a scout's training, viz. the habit of noticing details. The second, 'inductive reasoning', or the putting together of this and that detail so noticed, and deducing their correct meaning, is best illustrated in the Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes.

One other result may be noted; the veldt had captured him and for the rest of his life he recurrently felt the need for getting on to it again. This feeling is well expressed in the following passage:

11th September. ---My anniversary of joining Her Majesty's Service, 1876-1896 ---twenty years. I always think more of this anniversary than of that of my birth, and 1 could not picture a more enjoyable way of spending it. I am here, out in the wilds, with three troopers. They are Afrikanders, that is, Colonial born, one an ex-policeman, another a mining engineer (went to England with me in 1889 on board the Mexican), the third an electrical engineer from Johannesburg --- all of them good men on the veldt, and good fighting men. We are nearly eighty miles from Bulawayo and thirty from the nearest troops. I have rigged up a shelter from the sun with my blanket, a rock, and a thornbush; thirteen thousand flies are unfortunately staying with me, and are awfully attentive.

One of us is always on the look-out by night and by day. Our stock of food, crockery, cooking utensils, and bedding does not amount to anything much, as we carry it all on our saddles.

Once, not very long ago, at an afternoon 'At Home', I was handing a cup of tea to an old dowager, who bridled up in a mantle with bugles and beads, and someone noticed that in doing so my face wore an absent look, and I was afterwards asked where my thoughts were at that time. I could only reply that 'My mind was a blank, with a single vision in it, lower half yellow, upper half blue', in other words, the yellow veldt of South Africa, topped with the blue South African sky. Possibly the scent of the tea had touched some memory chord which connected it with my black tin billy, steaming among the embers of a wood fire; but whatever it was then, my vision is to-day a reality. I am looking out on the yellow veldt and the blue sky; the veldt with its grey, hazy clumps of thorn bush is shimmering in the heat, and its vast expanse is only broken by the gleaming white sand of the river bed and the green reeds and bushes which fringe its banks. (Interruption: Stand to the tent! A 'Devil', with its roaring pillar of dust and leaves, comes tearing by.) I used to think that the novelty of the thing would wear off, that these visions of the veldt would fade away as civilized life grew upon me. But they didn't. They came again at most inopportune moments: just when I ought to be talking 'The World', or 'Truth', or 'Modern Society' (with the cover removed), and making my reputation as a 'sensible, well-informed man, my dear', with the lady in the mantle, somebody in the next room has mentioned the word saddle, or rifle, or billy, or some other attribute of camp life, and off goes my mind at a tangent to play with its toys. Old Oliver Wendell Holmes is only too true when he says that most of us are 'boys all our lives'; we have our toys, and will play with them with as much zest at eighty as at eight, that in their company we can never grow old. I can't help it if my toys take the form of all that has to do with the veldt life, and if they remain my toys till I drop --

'Then here's to our boyhood, its gold and its grey,
The stars of its winter, the dews of its May;
And when we have done with our life-lasting toys,
Dear Father, take care of Thy children, the boys.'

May it not be that our toys are the various media adapted to individual tastes through which men may know their God?

As Ramakrishna Paramahansa writes: 'Many are the names of God and infinite the forms that lead us to know of Him. In whatsoever name or form you desire to know Him, in that very name and form you will know Him.'

By Christmas Day they were back at the Cape. They sailed at the beginning of January and the party included Cecil Rhodes and his strongest critic Olive Schreiner, bringing with her the manuscript of Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland which gave a very different view of white man and black from the accepted one.

A journalist on board contributed to the Sketch in later years an account of B.-P.'s activities during the voyage. The following passage shows that other side of his personality which nothing could suppress for long. The journalist had been given the task of getting up a concert.

Knowing of the Colonel's reputation as an entertainer, I hastened to him first of all. I remember he was sitting at a little table, surrounded with maps, sketches, and plans, and reams of foolscap --- the foundation, as I learnt after, of his book on the Matabele campaign. 'Oh, yes!' he said; 'put me down for a musical sketch. Eh? Title? Oh, I don't know anything about the title yet!' So I had to be content, and after all, it was a good start ---'Colonel Baden-Powell, Musical Sketch'.

The following night came the concert. Packed house; all local celebrities, etc. Colonel Baden-Powell appeared in the second half of the programme. I happened to be sitting near him at the interval, and asked him if he had thought of a title for his sketch. 'Oh, I haven't the remotest idea what it's going to be about even!' he replied, laughing. ' But it will come presently.' It did. The next turn was a song entitled 'I am a Nervous Man'. I don't think the song was funny --- in fact, I have not the remotest idea what it was about; but I do remember yelling ferociously for an encore, in order to give the Colonel --- as a committee-man, my trump-card ---a chance to think of his sketch. But it was no use, the encore was not forthcoming, and the would-be funny man retired. 'Next item on programme, Colonel Baden-Powell.' A roar of applause (he always was popular), and the Colonel quietly rose and walked to the piano.

'Ladies and gentlemen,' he said, 'I see here on the programme, "Colonel Baden-Powell, Musical Sketch", but no title. This I regret I have been unable to supply before; but, to tell you the truth --- er --- I have only just thought of it! With the permission of the artist who has just preceded me, the tide of my sketch will be 'I am a Nervous Man!' And for twenty minutes, with songs, imitations, stories, etc., the man who is now world-famed as the Defender of Mafeking kept that saloon, packed full of first, second, and third class passengers, in one continual roar of laughter and applause.

DURING leave in England, before rejoining the 13di Hussars in Dublin, B.-P. was busy completing the writing of The Matabele Campaign. He spent part of the time with his brother, Sir George, who had staying with him Fridjof Nansen. A year before Nansen had arrived m Norway from his 'Farthest-North' expedition and it was in Sir George's yacht Otaria that he had received the news that the Fram was safe. B.-P. was amused at the great number of requests for autographs which were daily showered on Nansen, and thought him 'rather a bear' for refusing to waste his time signing his name. In after years B.-P. himself was to experience the attentions of autograph hunters and to condemn them as public nuisances.

A note to one of the Lucknow 'girls' is dated 12th February 1897:

Thank you so much for your note of kind welcome. I was sorry not to see you the other day --- but one of these days I mean to come and grin at you in your own home. Fancy you having a home of your own indeed! I never heard such nonsense. Still, I'll come and humour it one of these days.

Yes, I am hiding here most successfully and enjoying the quiet and the freedom of it all. I've got my book very nearly finished after five days' work.

For his services in Matabeleland, he was promoted Brevet-Colonel; this created an anomalous position for he was now senior in rank to his own commanding officer. It was therefore not surprising that he was soon offered the command of another cavalry regiment, the 5th Dragoon Guards, then stationed in India. It was not easy to leave the regiment he had served for twenty-one years; an attempt to slip away was frustrated by the men of his squadron who made his journey to the station a triumphant procession.

He was now faced with the delicate task of taking command of a regiment in which he himself had not served. A former adjutant of the 5th Dragoon Guards records:

We all soon felt the influence of the 'new broom'. But what a nice broom he was. He has told me since how he had dreaded his first meeting with all the officers of his new regiment. In those days it was not always comfortable to be promoted into another regiment, but we took him to our hearts at once.

The recollections of one subaltern explain in part the case with which the new Colonel was accepted.

He was promoted to the command of my old regiment, the 5th Dragoon Guards, in the late '90s. I was at the time in the Western Soudan and did not meet him until my return to London, when he evidently thought he would like a look at me and invited me to dine at his club. I was otherwise engaged and could not accept but sent him a telegram to ask if he would have supper. with me at the New Lyric club instead at about midnight.

The New Lyric was perhaps rather a mixed club where young subalterns with contingents from the old Gaiety Theatre and elsewhere used to foregather at a late hour and have light refreshments and sing songs.

On second thoughts I was not too sure that it was quite the invitation that a young subaltern ought to have extended to his commanding officer, so I hastily collected some choice spirits to help me through if he should arrive --- not knowing him I was more inclined to expect a rebuff.

B.-P. turned up smiling, entered entirely into the spirit of the thing even to obliging with a song himself and, in the way he had with him which so many thousands were to know, quite carried us off our legs so that before parting in the small hours we all felt ready to do anything for, or go anywhere with, him.

By chance two fellow-travellers have recorded memories of the voyage out to India in the spring of 1897 when B.-P. joined the Britannia at Brindisi.

A lady who was making her first voyage out with her husband writes:

I well remember that it was Colonel, as he was then, Baden-Powell's presence on the ship that helped to make our voyage enjoyable. I have one or two entries in my diary, 'Sat with X (my husband) and Colonel Baden-Powell talking most of the evening'. We had a number of young fellows straight from Sandhurst and other subalterns too going out for the first time, and my husband told me that Colonel Baden-Powell's sympathy and interest in them was wonderful and made all the difference to them.

One of the subalterns writes:

B.-P. was going to India to command a Dragoon Cavalry Regiment. The voyage to India in those days was a lengthy matter. B.-P. had recently taken part in the Matabele Campaign. I shall never forget his extreme kindness to me in showing me his numerous notebooks complete with sketches about that Campaign and explaining it to me in detail. I have never forgotten the lessons he taught me about the importance of night work, observation and attention to detail. Those lessons bore fruit, as when I was a very junior officer I was appointed to raise and train scouts for my Division.

He was busily engaged in designing a poster in colour of Troopers of an Hussar regiment---one of that date and the other 100 years previously --- which he had been asked to do for the Royal Military Tournament. I often watched him doing it and he told me it was very difficult as he was only allowed three primary colours.

I had long talks with him about the African situation and the forthcoming Boer War. He told me that the Government had said that 10,000 men were sufficient but that he had told them most earnestly that at least 50,000 would be required and that they had laughed at him. We eventually had about 250,000! . --- .

B.-P. was an extraordinarily modest man, far from asserting and advertising himself as some people made out in after years. He, I remember well. had to be pressed and asked to do things which he did out of pure kindness of heart as he was very busy at the time. In fact all my life I have seldom met anyone with his exceptional kindness, thoughtfulness and giving help to others.

A subaltern of another regiment records a typical incident of B.-P.'s early days with his new regiment.

In 1897 1 was a subaltern of the 5th Royal Irish Lancers, quartered at Muttra N.W.P. (as it was then), India.

Colonel Baden-Powell had just taken over the command of the 5th Dragoon Guards who were stationed at Meerut.

He very kindly invited us subalterns to come to Meerut for a race meeting week held there in the cold weather, November 1897. We had a very jolly time and during the week a music-hall entertainment (a 'Gaff') was given by the regiments and gunners who were at Meerut, which was then a big military cantonment. One of the items of an excellent programme was down as a song by Private Brown of the 5th Dragoon Guards. Private Brown duly came on the stage. A dismal looking, lantern jawed, black haired gentleman in the uniform of a trooper in the regiment. He began singing a dreary ballad, but as verse succeeded verse, got more and more out of tune until a most appalling discord between the singer and the accompaniment resulted. Whereat Private Brown was howled down by the audience on the back benches, soldiers of the various regiments in the station. I was sitting next to Gillman, a subaltern of the Royal Horse Artillery (afterwards General Sir Webb Gillman, Master General of the Ordnance). After the hooting and cat-calling stopped, Private Brown came down to the footlights and commenced a stump speech, the burden of which was that it was a shame to shout and yell at a comrade who was doing his best to amuse the audience, and he'd re port it to the General Officer commanding the station, his Colonel, and much more to that effect, all given out in a loud, much injured, doleful voice. All of a sudden Gillman jumped up and shouted 'By jove, it's B.-P.!' And so it was. And amid vociferous applause 'Private Brown' kept the house rocking with laughter for a rare good turn.

At this period Winston Churchill was a subaltern in the 4th Hussars, and he had gained for himself a reputation for irrepressible high spirits, not only in his own regiment but beyond it. In a hard-fought polo match between the 5th Dragoon Guards and the 4th Hussars, during a moment of silence and expectation, Churchill greatly amused the spectators by shouting out angrily, 'Don't talk to me, talk to the Umpire!' That night during the concert, B.-P. made good use of this exclamation, much to the delight of the audience and of Churchill himself, who, as B.-P. said, was like a rubber ball, the more you tried to jump on him the higher he bounded. Such behaviour by the Colonel of a crack cavalry regiment must have upset many sticklers for dignity, but then B.-P. was never unduly concerned about his dignity, though no man could be more impressive when occasion demanded. The 'gamin' was only one aspect of his nature; his devotion to his officers and men, and the long hours of hard work he gave to his profession, made it possible for him to play the fool without any loss of prestige, however puzzling it must have been to more orthodox soldiers.

A note from Meerut dated the 3rd June 1897 shows that he was fully aware of the doubts his conduct raised.

Yes, I am now settled down here and supremely happy in my new surroundings, though it does upset some of their notions of the gravity expected of a full colonel, that I play polo and go pigsticking whenever I can make the chance.

It was an awful cut-up to leave the old 13th, but I am already getting reconciled to it --- except the kit --- I somehow feel a bit lost in that.

In giving great care to the welfare of his men, B.-P. was following the policy of Wolseley and Roberts. His natural inclination was further stimulated by observing what Smith-Dorrien had achieved. On the way to a tiger-hunting expedition in Nepal, B.-P. had to wait for a few days at Bareilly where Smith-Dorrien's regiment was then stationed. But much can be noted in a few days, and the visitor later wrote of Smith-Dorrien:

He was hard at work for the welfare of his men, working up their coffee-shop and canteen comforts and his cycling club, through which they could develop health and amusement. I was glad of the chance of seeing how he worked these things, and I afterwards cribbed many of his ideas for doing the same in my own regiment. In fact I arranged, then and there, for the purchase of a dozen bicycles towards starting our regimental biking club, which was afterwards an enormous success, because we developed it into a despatch-riding unit, which effected a great saving of horseflesh and became a most efficient means of carrying out communications for service.

In a short time he had set on foot various methods of improving the soldier's life. Entertainments of all kinds were encouraged; a pleasant refreshment room was provided, and in his campaign against heavy beer-drinking, he allowed the men to have a pint with their dinners; he rightly argued that it was better for them to drink their beer at a meal than to go off afterwards to the canteen and drink just for the sake of drinking. in fact, so successful were his efforts that the time came when he had to present a pair of white gloves to the Canteen Steward because not a soldier visited the canteen in twenty-four hours. B.-P. knew that the chief enemy was boredom, and his schemes for bringing new interests into the lives of his men even included suggestions for keeping their wives occupied! A fellow officer recorded with astonishment this incident during a railway journey to Delhi one July.

The heat was something indescribable: we were both sitting in light and airy costume, I myself being content with reading some volume of light literature between intervals of the sleep of exhaustion. I noticed that B.-P. was intent upon making some sketches during the greater part of the journey, and I could not help wondering what serious subject engrossed his mind in such trying weather. He was occupied in designing subjects suitable for embroidery to be done by the wives of the men of his regiment!

The health of the men was a matter of constant concern. Disease took a heavy toll of the soldiers in India at that period, and B.-P. with his usual thoroughness tried to find causes and so prevent illness. Here is his account of the methods employed.

In India enteric fever is far more deadly in its results than cholera used to be, and, although it is not so startling in its action, it kills a far greater number of men in the course of the year. It has therefore been the aim of all officers to endeavour to save their men from this scourge. The men themselves, trained in the ordinary Board School education in England, had absolutely no idea of looking after their own health, and had to be treated almost like children in the matter of warning against things that were bad for them. Had they possessed some knowledge of hygiene and sanitation some 50 per cent of the sickness and a large number of lives might have been saved.

In our regiment, as in most others, we took very strong precautions against disease among the men. For the two year s during which we were in one station I kept a constant record of the number of cases of enteric, each day, week, and month, noting with them the direction of the wind, state of barometer, and the particular barrack in which cases occurred; and of the respective barracks I took note of the height of the flooring above ground, the nature of the roofing, whether thatched or tiled, the dryness or dampness of weather and ground, and upon these observations we got some quite useful and suggestive information.

We came to the conclusion in the regiment that probably a good deal of disease was caused by the men being careless what they ate and drank when out walking in the native town away from barracks. Therefore we started for their benefit a bakery, under white supervision, where they could get all the cakes and tarts which were dear to them; also we had our own soda-water factory, where lemonade, gingerbeer, and other fancy drinks were manufactured from the cleanest materials; and we started our own dairy to insure that the milk, cream, and butter should be prepared in the cleanest possible way and free from all chance of contamination. In spite of all these precautions there was still a certain amount of disease in the regiment, so in addressing the men on the subject I suggested that the experiment should be made of seeing whether the disease actually came from their going about in the native city. I pointed out that they were grown-up men and not children, and I should not therefore order the city to be out of bounds for them, but I thought it would be wise if they tried the experiment of not going there for a fortnight, and if no further cases of sickness occurred it would show that the disease originated there. A few days after this one of the men was admitted to hospital badly bruised and knocked about, but he refused to give the cause of the injury. It afterwards transpired that he had gone down into the native quarter, and the other men on hearing of it had given him a bit of their mind!

He was a great believer in work as a cure for most troubles. This was not too popular a doctrine in the army at that period. Sir George Arthur, who was first commissioned in 1880, comments on this in his Not Worth Reading. 'Professional zeal had been at a discount, military history had been for the most part a closed book, any question as to strategy or tactics in the mess-room was liable to a fine, and the junior officer might frankly admit that any intimate knowledge of Waterloo was confined to the station from which to travel to Sandown or Aldershot.' Field-Marshal Sir William Robertson, who himself rose from the ranks, bears this out. 'Pipeclay, antiquated and useless forms of drill, blind obedience to orders, ramrodlike rigidity on parade, and similar time-honoured practices were the chief qualifications by which the regiment was judged.' And of the low-standing of the men, he writes, 'The fault lay not merely so much with the men --- who were good fellows at heart --- as with the authorities who neglected to provide them with congenial means of recreation, to place greater trust in their self-respect, and generally to call forth the better part of their nature.'

B.-P. not only set an example himself of hard work and professional study, but he deliberately aimed at encouraging initiative and enterprise in all ranks. He later summarized his method in a note written to an officer stationed in India in 1930.

1. The giving of responsibility to the N.C.O.s (down to the Lance-Corporals).

2. Making the training enjoyable to the men. I went possibly rather further (than you) in this direction --- but it paid and paid handsomely.

Keeping the men in permanent small units, and these units in competition with one another, whether in the field or in barracks roused their keenness and raised the level of efficiency all round.

A former officer of the regiment supplied the following note:

I think that I found the confidence he placed in those he had to deal with, made him more beloved than anything else, and I cannot bring to mind a single instance in which his instinct ever failed him. I remember particularly the way he dealt with one of the young officers who had a bad name as a soldier and took no interest in soldiering. B.-P. soon after he took over command, sent for this young man and placed him in a position of considerable responsibility. The officer was so surprised at being thought fit to undertake the work that he became a changed character, and nothing could exceed his zeal for the task given him. The effect lasted, for in the South African War he obtained a Brevet Majority for good work performed under difficult circumstances with the Scouts of the regiment. I never saw B.-P. lose his temper or do anything hastily which would have to be repented later. He took men as he found them, and had that great and good gift of getting the best out of them without having recourse to disciplinary methods. Officers and men would do anything for him. I know no one who had a greater influence for good than he had. By his consideration of the wants of his subordinates, by his sense of justice, he earned their devotion and gratitude.

It was in Scouting in particular that he found the means of training his men in self-reliance. He began systematic instruction and practices, and he obtained permission for men who qualified to wear the Scout badge --- the fleur-de-lis on the north point of the compass --- on their uniforms. The effect of this simple device was astonishing; men were eager to win the privilege of wearing the badge, and the gaining of it was sufficient reward. It is now of course a recognized practice to award such distinctive badges for many specialized branches of army training.

B.-P. himself gave the lectures, and devised the practical training; this took the form of day and night operations, sending out men singly or in pairs to make observations and bring in reports, and of full-scale manoeuvres with scouts and spies playing their proper parts. He insisted on preparedness at all times, and at short notice a squadron might be ordered to entrain complete with supplies for some unexpected exercise.

A former officer of the 5th Dragoon Guards under B.-P. has written the following notes of that period:

He was very popular with everyone, down to the last joined, and he had such a way with him that there was practically no crime in the regiment. One day his bicycle was stolen; he got up as soon as it was light and tracked the marks of the tyres in the dew to a bungalow where a company of the Connaught Rangers was quartered, and found the bicycle by the bed of a private of that regiment. He was a great advocate of the Lance and Sword, and also of revolver shooting, in all of which he himself excelled; he was a very fine horsemaster, and our horses were always in A.1. condition so that inspections were not a bugbear to us. He formed a body of Regimental Scouts who when they had passed a long., stiff examination were allowed to wear the fleur-de-lis badge. All through the hot weather, the regiment drilled and went out into camp, marching through the night and early morning, and lying up in the shade during the day's heat, and out again about 4 p.m. There was a saying that B.-P. never slept; he used often to go fast asleep during the mess dinner, but usually I knew that he would wake up about 2 a.m., and send me some orders which had to be carried out at once. He was a very great judge, of character; if he was not certain whom to put on a job, he would select three likely men and give them a month at a time in this particular post and then make his decision. In January 1899, he commanded a Brigade at the big Cavalry manoeuvres at Delhi; shortly after that he was recalled to London and sent out to Mafeking, and that was the last we saw of a very popular C.O.

B.-P. neglected no opportunity of extending his own experience, and this eagerness to learn naturally had its effect on his subordinates; if the Colonel himself felt the need for more knowledge, what of the other officers? So early in 1898 he set off for the N.W. Frontier to get some first-hand experience of mountain warfare under General Sir Bindon Blood. He was present at a minor engagement, but seems chiefly to have been impressed by the boldness and agility of the enemy and the courage they displayed.

Regimental life was broken by occasional hunting trips --- for tigers, panthers or bears. 'It was a great delight to be in shirt-sleeves and cowboy hat, in camp once more.' His accounts of these expeditions show that he got as much fun out of the spooring involved as in the actual killing, and his observations of wild animal and plant life added to his enjoyment. Elephants particularly attracted him. Some of B.-P.'s best pages --- and he always wrote well about animals, his favourite subjects for sketches --- are about elephants.

I could never bring myself to shoot an elephant. I have been among them in the wilds and have had to do with them tamed; I love to watch them, and I like to use them, but my respect for them is far too great to allow me to shoot them. It strikes me as an impertinence to put an end to a wise old creature a hundred and fifty years old and of such massive proportions. He is a link with prehistoric times, and I would as soon blow up the Tower of London as shoot him.

I have often thought, when out pigsticking in the Kadir, how like a ship an elephant is, from a spectator's point of view. The great sea of long grass, with the distant belts of trees on either bank of the Jumna, might well be the Thames at the Nore, with a fresh breeze blowing across it. Then comes an elephant 'reaching' across, only the upper part of him showing above the grass, heaving along and passing my horse exactly like a sailing-vessel passing a fishing-boat. When you are on the elephant he is even more like a vessel, as he rolls along surging through the grass and from time to time swishing water from his trunk over his chest. Even when he is halted he keeps rolling and heaving about like a ship at anchor in a breeze. When you change from your pad elephant to the one with a howdah, he is run alongside, and as the two roll together you step on board just as from a tender to a ship. When the elephant is moving about the jungle, as you stand in your howdah, you feel just as if you were standing on the bridge of a steamer.

B.-P.'s longest trip while in India was a month's holiday in Kashmir. Most of the time he was alone except for his dog Jack and his native servants; part of the journey was on the River Jhelum in a doonga, and his record of the trip shows the familiar keenness in the observation of people and places, of manners and customs. He spent much time sketching and he brought back some of the most attractive of his water-colours. His colouring was fresh with no attempt at detail, but giving broad effects of light and shade.

He describes his river routine as follows:

Getting under weigh in the morning was a beautifully simple operation. The usual routine was that I awoke about daybreak, the crew then being at their prayers, with one eye on Heaven, the other on me. As soon as I rolled out of bed their prayers came to an end, my bed was handed into the doonga, and before I had well started my toilet on board, the mooring pegs had been pulled up and we were under weigh. The kitchen boat presently ranged up alongside, and my chota-hazri was brought on board. After which Jack and I landed and walked for a couple of hours. Then came a tub, clean flannels and breakfast, and subsequently a settling down for the day.

The verandah of my doonga was a charming place on which to spend a happy day; I could sit there for hours and enjoy watching the view continually changing. Jack also liked lying with his head over the side, peering down into the water. So little did I like the idea of ending this ideal boat-life that I gave orders to the crew that they were to go slowly, and still further delay the inevitable.

Spear-fishing was his one sport while on the river. When he took to road and path, a suitable routine was mapped out.

When the morning star begins to wane in the coming dawn I would wake up and shout: 'James.' Jack, who has watched for this, would immediately jump on to my bed, stretch himself and go to sleep again. So would I --- for about seven minutes.

Then James hands in a plate of grapes and disappears. All my servants had, after a painful amount of drilling, got into the way of doing what I want and nothing more, and then disappearing again, instead of their usual system of fiddling about eye-serving. While I am at the grapes, and Jack at the skins, the bearer would be putting my hot water and washing-things ready outside. Then I up and dress, by which time the table, which stands on a big waterproof sheet as carpet out in the open, is laid with cocoa, eggs, and toast.

During breakfast the tents have been struck and packed up and sent off on their road, as well as all the other kit. Every carrier knows his own load, picks out his things directly they are available, packs them up, and off he goes. One man waits to take the table, chair, carpet, and tea-things. The whole thing is done in about fifteen minutes and not a word is spoken.

My tiffin-basket is really a tea-basket; it has a kettle and a spirit-lamp which enables me to make my own tea. It has quite sufficient storage for what food I want. I have added to its equipment an aluminium cigar-case which holds toast or biscuits, and an old tooth-powder box containing salt and pepper mixed.

My tiffin man also carries a clean shirt and a change of chaplis and socks, and therein lies my secret of walking, viz. a change of footgear. I was known at Charterhouse for playing football with two pair of boots, one pair on, the other in waiting ready to be changed into at half-time. 1 always consider a change of footgear the most important item in a long walk.

Later there was bear-hunting, and his diary gives the impression that he was far more interested in tracking and observing bears than in the actual killing. Such notes as the following are frequent:

Nothing in particular happened during the next few days. It rained and I enjoyed the seclusion of my tent with a jolly big fire at the door. Then we had another bear-drive and I admired the clouds rolling up the mountains and the yellow and lilac country below; but there were no bears. I also did some reading, including Colonel French's lectures on Cavalry Manoeuvres and Henderson's Strategy and its Teaching, just to remind me that I was a soldier as well as a vagabond. Then I had to do a little doctoring. Poor Jack was suffering from a bad eye. I really thought he had lost it from a thorn or something. I bathed it with tea, and afterwards with a lead lotion, and it got better and Jack began to enjoy life again.

How far can one see a man? From my position on the ridge one day, looking on to the Liddar, I could see a bridge over it, and two or three people crossing it at different times. My shikari has good sight, but could only see the piers of the bridge, and said the roadway had, he thought, been carried away by the floods. I bet him a rupee it was there. My field glasses proved that I was right. With them I could even see which way the planks of the roadway were laid! I had also pointed out some cattle which he and his assistant could not at first see. Then we had a match at counting them, wherein we ran a dead heat; but I eventually won the competition in an underhand way by spotting the herdsman in charge of the cattle. We all looked in vain for him till I noticed a bush on the hillside above the cattle, and I Sherlock-Holmesed that the man would like to be in the shade and, at the same time, in a position commanding a view of his charges, so I made a shot at it, and said he was by the bush: and when we turned the glasses on we found I was correct. The distance according to the map was apparently over three miles.

Again I sat up, a whole night this time, for bears; but without result. The shikari became very unhappy, and to humour him I had to simulate great anger. I did not really care a bit, I was getting good exercise and splendid views, which was all I wanted; but I could not explain this to the shikari, and anger was my only alternative.

An accident to one of the beaters resulted in B.-P. acquiring an embarrassing reputation as a doctor.

On the way down one of the beaters slipped and dislocated his shoulder. He was brought to me just outside the ziarat. I laid him on his back and took off my right chapli, as it was his right arm that was layed out. The crowd, eager to help, dashed at my other chapli and had that off too. I sat down by him, as if for American cock-fighting, stuck my heel into his arm-pit, and then pulled tug-of-war with his arm, while the shikari held him down. He did not like it, poor chap, but in a moment it was all over, the arm came in with a click. The crowd cheered, he fainted, his mother sobbed. Then there came a discussion as to whether he was not dead: then they began to get excited and not to like me any more, but in the midst of it he sat up looking very sheepish at finding himself all right and not half the hero he had been a minute before. Afterwards I gave him some Jacob's oil to rub on the shoulder, and castor --- well, no, I was beginning to run short of that, so I let him off it.

Although I only undislocated the arm at 5 p.m. in the afternoon, the next morning, before I went to the mountain at 7 a.m., poor creatures were coming in to be cured of their various ailments. My fame as a doctor had already spread. They were beyond laughter and treating with castor-oil.

One note is of considerable importance for it marks the conception of the book Aids to Scouting which was to have such astonishing effects.

When bear driving there are long waits while the beaters are getting to their places. It suddenly occurred to me one day to write a book on Scouting. So during these waits I jotted down in my note-book first heads for chapters, and finally subjects of paragraphs. In a very short time I had finished it, ready for a shorthand writer to take down from dictation. Thus I killed two birds with one stone: I got on paper what I had long wanted to put before my men, and which brought me later the price of a polo-pony.

In May 1899 he sailed for England on leave, happy in the Commander-in-Chief's praise of the efficiency of the 5th Dragoon Guards. Actually it was his farewell to regimental life, but in his two years as commander he had achieved much and learned much.

Chapter Seven

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