THE HERO OF MAFEKING.

Otago Witness, Issue 2412, 24 May 1900, Page 24

THE HERO OF MAFEKING.

Colonel Baden-Powell -is young, as men «o in the army (writes the correspondent of Vhe London Times in Mafeking), with a keen appreciation of the possibilities of his career. His countenance is keen, his stature short, his features sharp and smooth. He is eminently a man ot determination, with great physical endurance and capacity, and extraordinary reticence. His reserve is unbending, and one would say, quoting a phrase of Mr Pinero's, that fever would be the only heat which would permeate his body. He does not go" about freely, since he is tied to his office through the multitudinous cares of hiscommand, and he is chiefly happy when he can snatch the time to escape upon one of those nocturnal silent expeditions, which alone calm and assuage- the perpetual excitement of his present existence. Outwardly, he maintains an impenetrable screen of selfcon'trol, observing with a cynical smile the foibles and caprices of those around him.He's'eer.is- over bracing himself to be on guard against a moment in which he should be swept by some unnatural and spontaneous enthusiasm, in which by a word, by an expression of face, by a movement, or in the turn of a phrase, he should betray the rigours of the self-control under which he lives. Every passing townsman regards hira with curiosity not unmixed with awe. ' Every servant in the hotel watches him. and he, a.j' a. consequence, - seldom, speaks without a preternatural deliberation and an air of incisive finality. He seems to close every argumentwith a snap,- as though the &teel manacles of his ambition had checkmated the emotions of the man in the instincts of the officer, lie weighs each remark before he utters it, and suggests by his -manner, as by his words, that he has considered the different effects it might conceivably have on any mind as the expression of his own mind. As an officer, he has given lo Mafeking a complete and magnificent security, to the construction of which he has brought a very practical knowledge of the conditions of Boer warfare, of the Boers themselves, and of the strategic value of the adjacent areas. His espionage excursions to the Boer lines have gained him an intimate and accurate idea, of the value of the opposing forces and a mass of data by which he can immediately counteract the enemy's attack. Ec loves the night, and after his return from the hollows in the veldt, where he has kept so many anxious vigils, he lies awake hour after hour upon his camp mattress in the verandah, tracing out, in his mind, the various means and agencies by which he can forestall their move, which, unknown to them, he had personally watched. He is a silent man. In the noisy day he yearns for the noiseless night, in which he can slip into the vistas of the veldt, an unobtrusive spectator of the mystic communion of tree with tree, of twilight with darkness, of land with water, of early morn with fading night, with tho music of the journeying winds to &peak to him and to lull his thoughts. As •he makes his way across our lines the watchful sentry strains his eyes a little more to keep the figure of the Colonel before him, until the undulations of the veldt conceal his progress. He goes in the privacy of the night, when it is no longer a season of moonlight, when, although the stars are full, the night is dim. The breezes of tho veldt are warm oncl gentle, impregnated -with the fresh fragrances of the Molopo, although, as he walks vi ith rapid, almost running, footsteps, leaving the blaok blurr of the town for the arid and stony areas to the wcat, a new wind meets him, a wind that is keen and clear and

dry, the" wind of the wastes that wanders fo? ever over the monotonous sands of the desert. ■> He goes on, never faltering, bending for • a moment behind a clump of rocks, screening - himself next behind some bushes, crawling upon his hands and knees." His ."head is- low, his eyes gaze straight upon the camp of the enemy ; in a little, he moves again, his inspection is' over, and he either changes to a fresh point or startles some "dozing sentry as he slips back into town.

To sit down and invent a Life full of personal anecdotes and biographical details o£ any man who happens to attract public attention (writes Haiold Begbie in the Pall Mall Gazette) seems to be the easiest thing in the world, if we may judge from the numerous fictitious sketches of Colonel Baden-Powell which have recently appeared in the newspapers. These sketches, or the greater number of them, are nothing more than brilliant pieces of imagination on the part of their writers. At first they had the effect of making BadenPowell's relations indignant; but, as their mimber increased and the fancy of their authors soared into sublimer heights, indignation, became swallowed up in amusement. Will it , be believed that one scribe actually wrote to Baden-Powell's nearest relative, asking for information about the hero of Mafeking on the ■ score of helping to perpetuate a fame that would otherwise inevitably fizzle out ? But it , is unnecessary to dwell on these apocryphal biographies except to say that "'it would have ' been better to indulge in vague hero-worship : than invent idle traits more calculated to give pain them arouse admiration. It may be as well to state, however, that, with one exception, to no one have any of Baden-Powell's-private letter's to his family been shown. Of the following brief sketch we can. say that it is sanctioned by the one person who has a right to speak about that most modest and self-effacing man, the defender of Mafeldng. Before sketching the interesting story of 8.-P.'s life, it should be said that his relations are astonished by his present place in the public estimation. They want to know why he has so suddenly jumped into public esteem. It is not merely a newspaper fame which has fonio to Baden-Powell, nor is it confined to fjondoa, wh»re everybody reads some journal or other night and day. A few weeks ago Miss Baden-Powell was travelling in Scotland, and. when her trunk was toppled out of the guard's van far away from big citie«, and the stationmaster saw ihe name thereon, he rushed up to the astonished owner, and with beaming eyes begfr^d io have the honour, of shaking her hand. To Baden-Powell's London house all liiasi-.rr of gilts addressed to his proud mother t're continually arriving, ranging from a large portrait oi 13 .-P. worked m coloured silks to book-markers cross-stitched to his honour and glory. There are Baden-Powell brooches and postcards, and now Mdnie. Tussaud has completed the apotheosis by placing him among. her immortsls in Baker street! But why now? demand 8.-P.'s relations. To thorn, and to all military men, Baden-Powell lias been a hero and an intensely romanticfigure for many years. Marvellous as his defence of Mafeking has been, he has done work in the past of an even more thrilling and astounding nature — work that has been passed over*-by the public and ignored by the press.What, then, is the "reason of this sudden anduniversal popularity? for it is certain that when the campaign is over 8.-P.'s welcome to England by the masses will T>e as enthusiastic as' that of the most -successful general. The rea-, son of it all, we th.nk, is his humour, his unquenchable good spirits. People will never forget " the dog " of Mafeking, and they will never forget that at a time when things were 1 looking .uncomfortably black and cheerless,, 8.-P. would set" the whole nation on the roar, with some humoious commentary in the bombardment of the investing^ Cronje. Those messages made us feel that we must come out all right in the end. A BORN COMSDIAX. And this humour is, perhaps, BadenPowell's dominant characteristic. He has made himself the most earnest, the most hardworking, the most enthusiastic soldier in the world but Nature first made him a wit. Ask any of the -men who have served with him in, the 13th Hu=sars what manner of man is-8.-P.. ancl the first answer will be, as the eyes twinkle and the face breaks into smiles, "He is the. funniest beggar on earth!" After they will tell you what a dear fellow he ia, what a perfect regimental officer he is, what an interest he takes in his men, in their games, m their ambitions, in their families, and all the rest of it ; but, always his humour first. Baden-Powell is a born actor. So great, indeed, was his fame as a comedian in India that a manager of some London theatre once gravely wrote and offered 'him an engagement at £10 a week. This faculty for " playing the fool " was early developed, and at Charterhouse, whenever he kept goal for the eleven, the spot was always surrounded by a group of admiring youngsters, kept in continual merrimsnt byj his lively sallies of fun — when the" ball was distant. By-and-bye, in the "'Football Anmial" (1876, p. 30) it is recorded that Baden-Powell wa3 a good goalkeeper, "keeping cool, and always to be depended on." -Surely, the master who wrote those words was a prophet. HIS FATHER AND GODFATHER. ' . To begin at -the beginning, however, and leave 8.-P.'s fame and its cause to look aftec, themselves, we set down, a few particulars as to Colonel Baden-Powell's family. Of course, his father was a parson. The Eev.,BadenPcwell (the name is pronounced Bay den Poel) was well-known ab Oxford in his dRy, and he was appointed lo the Savilian Chnir of Geometry by a distinguished elective body, consisting of, among others, the then Archbishop of Canterbury and the Lord Hi^h Chancellor. His mother," Henrietta Grace "Smyth, eldest daughter of Admiral W. H. Sinytii. X S.F., a descendant of the heroic Captain John Smith, of Elizabethan times, was married to the Eev. Baden-Powell in 1846. and our hero, Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell, was born at G, Stanhope street, London, on February 22, 1857. He is 43 to-day. One of Mrs BadenPowell's brothers is Governor of Malta, ar other is Astronomer-Royal of Scotland, and another Mineral Inspector to the Crown. 8.-P.'s godfather was the celebrated engineer, Robert Stephenson ; he was present at the christening, giving out the names of the peacefully- slumbering 8.-P., and he took a. va^t interest in his godson throughout the period of childhood. -That childhood was singularly happy, singularly English. Although the sons weie very early depfived of a father, they had, in their mother, a wise and patientparent, who ruled only by love, trusted to her, boys' sense of honour, and encouraged them in all their sports Of 8.-P. and his brothers, all, by the way, distinguished men, there are no stories of naughtiness or stupid daredeviliy. Thsy were model children, whose, ruling passion was the acquisition of knowledge. The only shocks they gave their mother, seem to have" been administered from the backs of careering ponies, when, shouting and' waving their arms, they would charge inadlsrs up the drive fitting with their faces towards thi ponies' tails. 8.-P. was an excellent rider very soon after he had learned to toddleLike the children of Matthew Arnold, the young Baden-Powells were born naturalists. When other boys were loafing and plotting mischief, these eiiger youngsters were roving the woods in search of birds' eggs, or scouring

COontinued oa jjago 27.)