WITH PAGET'S HORSE TO THE FRONT

180 pages, frontispiece portrait, blue cloth decorated with the colours of the corps, spine gilt, slightly worn at top and bottom of back, corners bumped, light foxing throughout, a good copy

Mendelssohn (Sidney) SOUTH AFRICAN BIBLIOGRAPHY volume 2 page 251-252 :Mr. Rose-Innes states that " Paget's Horse " was a " gentleman corps," raised among others to help to crush the last sustained effort of the Boers. The account of the red tape encountered at the War Office is very curious, and allusion is made to " the weeks wasted," and the oaths, declarations, and acres of forms of proposals which had to be signed before any one was allowed to enlist. The corps does not appear to have been engaged in any of the more important actions, but seems to have been always moving about, the author remarking, " Whether we were hunting Delarey or De Wet, or they were hunting us, I have never learned." He does not appear to have been an ardent admirer of the Veld, and observes, " Dismal is the Karroo beyond all conception " it " deadens the brain with a feeling of hope- less despair." Referring to the behaviour of some of our soldiers, Mr. Rose- Innes tells of a Major who, coming into a farm-house while the troops were being entertained by a Boer lady of British descent, " roughly warned her that should any shot be fired from that or any farm in the neighbourhood, every farm in the district would be burnt down," and he comments on the " genial sort of remark to your hostess " made by this officer. A touching picture is drawn of the distress of the women, girls, and children of a Boer farm at the destruction of their home ; but the reader is asked to remember " that these sad-faced women but a few days before had with glee" loaded the rifles with which their men from this very farm had killed some of our comrades-in-arms.