Full Of Veld Craft And
Resource, It Was As Difficult To Outwit As It Was To Outfight Him.
But There Was Another Curious Side To His Complex Nature.
The
French have said of one of their heroes, 'Il avait cette graine de
folie dans sa bravoure que les Francais aiment,' and the words
might have been written of Powell.
An impish humour broke out in
him, and the mischievous schoolboy alternated with the warrior and
the administrator. He met the Boer commandos with chaff and jokes
which were as disconcerting as his wire entanglements and his
rifle-pits. The amazing variety of his personal accomplishments was
one of his most striking characteristics. From drawing caricatures
with both hands simultaneously, or skirt dancing to leading a
forlorn hope, nothing came amiss to him; and he had that magnetic
quality by which the leader imparts something of his virtues to his
men. Such was the man who held Mafeking for the Queen.
In a very early stage, before the formal declaration of war, the
enemy had massed several commandos upon the western border, the men
being drawn from Zeerust, Rustenburg, and Lichtenburg.
Baden-Powell, with the aid of an excellent group of special
officers, who included Colonel Gould Adams, Lord Edward Cecil, the
soldier son of England's Premier, and Colonel Hore, had done all
that was possible to put the place into a state of defence. In this
he had immense assistance from Benjamin Weil, a well known South
African contractor, who had shown great energy in provisioning the
town.
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