Baden-Powell of Mafeking by J.S. Fletcher

When Baden-Powell sent the famous despatch to Lord Roberts in which he drew the latter's attention to the fact that the garrison had now undergone a two hundred days' siege, the reply came back, "Relief on May 18th. " This reply was pretty much in the nature of a prophecy, for the actual relief of Mafeking took place on May 17th. During the first two weeks of the month the two columns under Mahon and Plumer had been steadily forcing their way towards the beleaguered town, and on the 15th they joined hands, at a point thirty miles west of the town. As the relief columns drew nearer, the Boers, realizing that their efforts were hopeless, retreated in all directions, and on the 16th the besieged chiefly occupied themselves in watching Mahon's and Plumer's forces shelling the Boers out of their camps and laagers. In the evening Major Kerr-Davis and a few men of the Imperial Light Infantry rode into the town. Their reception was characteristically British. Stopping to tell a passer-by that they formed the advance guard of the relieving force, they were answered in laconic fashion, "Oh, yes; I heard you were knocking about outside somewhere! " But a good deal -- more than a good deal! -- of feeling doubtless lay behind that apparently careless answer. It may have been hard for the besieged to realize that Mafeking was really relieved at last. But on the morning of the 17th the relief force was in the town in strength, and the Boers were vanishing on the horizon.

It is difficult to realize the feelings of the besieged and of their succourers when the final meeting between them took place. The columns under Mahon and Plumer had worked hard and with true British zeal, and it must have aroused thoughts which could scarcely be put into words when the object of the expedition was achieved. Mr. Filson Young, special correspondent of the _Manchester Guardian_, accompanying the relief columns, gives the following account of the first glimpse of the little town: --