etc., had to defend the station. Two of the seventeen were killed, and Lieutenant Preece and the remainder of his gallant little corps were taken prisoners. The 2000 mail bags were used as a barricade. It is recorded that when the gallant little band surrendered, and De Wet, riding an English cavalry horse, came up, the Boer general was most polite and even kind in many ways, and expressed himself as "very sorry to do it," when asked not to destroy the letters and registered parcels. He said if he did not do so, his young Boers would open and read them and turn the letters of the soldiers into ridicule. The bags were opened, the contents strewed about, and the Boers

possessed themselves of the valuables, while tobacco, cigarettes, cakes, chocolates were so plentifully strewed about that the young Boers even invited their prisoners to help themselves, as the General was going to burn everything. And he did burn the entire station.

In his forty-seventh report (1901) the Postmaster-General states:

The forty-eighth report (1902) mentions no change of any importance in the Army Postal Service in South Africa, and gives the weekly average mail from England as 184,000 letters and 143,600 packets of printed matter: the total number of letters for the year ended March 31, 1902, was 10,774,000 outward, and 8,372,000 homeward, showing a decrease compared with previous returns. During the same period 528,000 parcels were sent out.

The last official reference to the Army Postal Service in South Africa is contained in the forty-ninth (1903) report, announcing its withdrawal, postal communications with the troops still on service in the old colonies and the new ones being carried on through the Colonial Post Offices under the ordinary regulations. The Peace was declared May 31, 1902.

The war in South Africa left its impress on many pages of the stamp collector's album, but at this juncture we are chiefly concerned with the immediate work of the British military postal service. Collectors have followed the use of the stamps of the home country into the distant fields of operations by means of the various postmarks which are summarised as follows from the collection of Captain Guy R. Crouch, of the Oxford and Bucks Light Infantry[3]:

24     25

26     27

Type 1 (Fig. 24). Office Numbers from 1 to 56, and 100. Used also at Cape Town base with initials BO (Base Office) and an asterisk (sometimes omitted) in lieu of the office number. Also at sub-base offices with larger office numerals 1 to 9.

Type 2 (Figs. 25, 26). Commonly without the year being noted, as in the first illustration but also found with the year

as in the second illustration of this mark. It has been largely supposed, but without much, if any, foundation that these year-less marks originated in Ladysmith during the siege, but little correspondence can have been passed out of the town during that period, and the origin of many of these marks is known not to have been Ladysmith.

Type 3 (Fig. 27). Used in sub-offices supplementary to type 1, found stamped in blue-green as well as in black. Office numbers 41-60.

28     29

Type 4 (Fig. 28). Used in Base Office at Cape Town.

Type 5 (Fig. 29). A locally made rubber-stamp cancellation found in several sub-varieties.

30     31

Type 6 (Fig. 30). Used in the field post offices attached to the Natal Field Force with name of place or number.

Type 7 is similar to type 2 but lettered NATAL FIELD FORCE, found in black and in violet.

Type 8, a newspaper cancellation, with NFF (Natal Field Force) in white letters on a black ground, circular shape.

30A

Type 9 (Fig. 30A). A thick lined circle, 20 mm. in diameter, lettered F.P.O. (Field Post Office) and a number, also used for newspapers.

Type 10. An