SPORT IN WAR.
Sport in War. By Major - General R. S. S. Baden - Powell F.R.G.S. (W. Heinemann. 5s.)—Mr. A. E. T. Watson, the editor of the Badminton Magazine, writes the preface to these five chapters originally contributed to the magazine by the defender of Mafeking. Permission to print them in this form came from Rustenburg, after the relief of the beleaguered village. The book is beautifully bound and printed, each page of print being sur- rounded by an elegant border in shamrock green. All the illus- trations are from the author's hand, some of them so good that we feel convinced that had not the career of arms attracted him, he would have occupied a leading place among the artists of sport. His animals are not, perhaps, really better than his men. The tiny sketches in his " Matabele Campaign" of the Kaffirs, seen through the telescope, conversing on the theory of war are as good as Cruikshank's etchings of Jack Sheppard escaping from Newgate. But when he is painting scenes of vigorous sport his men are as good and lifelike as his animals, and the whole party seem to "go" together. The first and second of the chapters deal with sport in Matabeleland and describe runs with the Cape foxhounds. The former was obtained when patrolling on the Shangani River and elsewhere after the break up of the revolt, man-hunting and less dangerous forms of sport being combined. Rinderpest had injured, but not destroyed, the large game. The koodoo, the finest of all antelopes, had suffered most. Still, there were these, and sable and roan antelope, vriklebeeste, hartebeests, small buck, wild pig, and even a few giraffes, and any quantity of birds. The story of shooting lions with the Lee-Metford, and with soldiers for gillies, is pleasantly told. One soldier, the regimental farrier, went to look for a wounded lion with a revolver, clambering eagerly about the rocks, and peering into likely places. The " Run with the Cape Foxhounds " deserves to become a classic, and to take a place beside "Nimrod's" celebrated day in Leicester- shire. The Boer farmers and English sportsmen, the former rough and unkempt, in wideawakes and trousers, the latter the pink of sporting neatness, are vividly drawn and excellently described. Three illustrations in this article are as good as Leech's best in " Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour." One shows the meet, Cape Boer and Briton, Dutch waggons and English hounds, and the inevitable kopje and church ; another the Dutch metamor- phosed, flying along with beards streaming back behind their ears. hats flapping and whips whacking, in all the ecstasy of the chase; and the last a hunt reversed. The huntsman and whips have dismounted to " spoor " the fox (jackal), and tied their three horses together. The hounds have hit off the scent and are streaming up a hill, the three horses, still tied head to head, gallop after them, while the three dismounted riders pursue. Evidently fox-hunting is common ground for Briton and Boer to meet on. That excellent good feeling prevailed is clear from General Baden-Powell's account. The last three chapters deal with pig-sticking and a day's shooting in Tunisia. The "human interest" in one of the pig-sticking stories is, to say the least, rather artificial. Two rivals "ride" for a young lady; when the successful lover has won first spear, it is discovered that the young lady, like Orgetorix in the Gallic War, "is dead." She has been thrown out of her howdah and killed.
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