TOPIC:

Only a pawn!

'A Correspondent writes: 'One of the Colonial troopers, who was a chess player, and was carrying a let of ivory chessmen in his haversack, was wounded during the Mounted Infantry reconnaissance to Brandfort, and was left on the field. When he was found the next dat he was dead. He had placed his water bottle on a stone beside him and one pawn upon it. Only a pawn in the big game of chess was gone.



Source: The Graphic 14 July 1900

Generals French and Hutton crossing the Vaal into Transvaal terrirory



Our Special Artist, describing the crossing of the Vaal River, write 'The sun was setting behind the hills blackened by grass fires on the further side of the river, and a vast grassy slope below was dotted with long black lines of of waggons, animals bivouacking, the blue smoke of their camp fires rising straight in the air; but on our bank there still stood two long columns of transport waggons awaiting their turn to cross. Long after the sun had set and left the sparkling lights of the camp fires and the flickering light of the burning grass beyond to break the dusk, I could hear the rattle and crash of the wheels in the stony drift and the harsh yells of the drivers.'

Source: The Graphic, 28 July 1900

Rimington's Tigers supplementing the commissariat



During Lord Roberts's march through the Free State, whatever might happen to any one else, Rimington's Scouts or 'Tigers' as they were sometimes called, took very good care not to go hungry; and it was to be noticed that after they had visited the farms lying near the line of march there was not much left for the next comers. Like Rudyard Kipling's merchantmen, they might have said of their supplies 'And some we got by purchase. And some we got by trade. And some we found by courtesy of the pike and carronade'.

Source: The Graphic, 21 July 1900

Major B Baden-Powell's man-lifting kite



Source: The Graphic 14 July 1900

In 1895 Baden-Powell had patented his "Levitor"- Kite. Marconi uses in 1901 one of these kites to make the first electronic wireless transmission. Baden-Powell used this kite to make in 1894 several "man lifting"- trials. In original the kite had a surface of 84 m² (11 m x 11 m).

Source: www.kiteplans.org/planos/bapowell/bapowell_2.html

Thanks for the pictures David...... Many years ago a local antique furniture dealer got 3 container loads of furniture from an estate in the UK..... The shipper had used books and rugs, from the library as buffer padding in the containers..... I was able to salvage , The Times History of the Boer War vol 1-7, missing #5 (since found) a number of Regimental History Books from his garbage bin...... Along with the books was bound in 6 month volumes the Graphic for last 6 months 1900, 1901 and first 6 months of 1902..... He told me that he sold some of the books but all the bound magazine and news papers he did not think anyone would have wanted them so he threw them away (crying while I went through bins)..... The ones that I got were from the last container, Damn...... Now you see the single pages on echo bay but would never take the books apart even though they weigh a ton.....

Mike

Mike,

It was very fortunate that you were able to salvage so many items. It sounds like quite a collection.

It does seem that many are selling the individual pages online these days or perhaps the high prices mean that we keep seeing the same pages advertised? I hope it is the latter.