The Relief of Mafeking

The proprietors of the _Manchester Guardian_ have kindly allowed me to make use of their copyright in the letters written by me to that newspaper during the first half of the year. The substance of the letters has been reproduced in the hope that home-staying folk may find in them something of the atmosphere that surrounds the collision of armed forces. It is a strange and rude atmosphere; yet it pleases me at this moment to remember not so much the strangeness and rudeness as the kindness and good-fellowship that made a dreadful business tolerable and the memory of it pleasant. Many friends of these brave days I may not see again, but if their eyes should ever light on this page I would have them know that it contains a greeting.