United States or Oman ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
One can fancy with what great reverence B.-P. the caricaturist must have looked upon Thackeray's pencil in the Charterhouse Library the pencil of the great man whose shilling he was then hoarding with the jealousy of a miser. Baden-Powell's quality as a schoolboy may be judged by his later life. Few things are so pleasant about him as his intense loyalty to his old school.
Captain FitzClarence was wounded, Vernon, Sandford, and Paton were killed, all at the very muzzles of the enemy's guns. It must have been one of the bitterest moments of Baden-Powell's life when he shut his field-glass and said, 'Let the ambulance go out!
In his boyhood, as we saw, he loved few things more than "exploring," and now he has but exchanged the woods of Tunbridge Wells for the Indian Jungle and the Welsh mountains for the Matopos. Happy the man who carries with him into middle-age the zest and aims of a clean boyhood. There is something invigorating, almost inspiring, in the contemplation of Baden-Powell's meridian of life.
Shackleton, a member of the late Sir George Baden-Powell's expedition to observe the eclipse of August 9, 1896; and similar records in abundance were secured during the Indian eclipse of January 22, 1898, and the Spanish-American eclipse of May 28, 1900. The result of their leisurely examination has been to verify the existence of a "reversing-layer," in the literal sense of the term.
However, Baden-Powell's advent reassured them, and preparations for war proceeded apace; the townspeople flocked in to be enrolled in the town guard, spending the days in being drilled; the soldiers were busy throwing up such fortifications as were possible under the circumstances.
Besides this, Baden-Powell had constructed bomb-proof shelters everywhere, and a boy stood ready with bell-rope in hand to ring immediate warning of a shell's approach. Trenches were dug giving cover and leading from every portion of the town. So perfect indeed were Baden-Powell's defences that it was possible to walk entirely round the little town without being exposed to the Boer fire.
As I eat my dinner at night I always wish I could hand it over to him." Could a Briton do more? Such then is Baden-Powell's character as a regimental officer.
He was, in fact, one of General Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts. Scan him closely. Do not dismiss him with a passing glance; for you are looking at the Boy of Destiny, at Clarence MacAndrew Chugwater, who saved England. To-day those features are familiar to all.
In years to come, I suppose, only the imagination will be able to realise the effect on the stoical British mind of Baden-Powell's brisk and witty telegrams. England at that time, let it be known, was in a state of sullen wonderment. Every dispatch brought consternation to our minds.
If Lord Roberts had listened to Baden-Powell's protest against the evacuation of Rustenburg and Olifant's Nek, De Wet would probably have followed Cronje to St. Helena; but that does not prove that the policy of withdrawing from remote and exposed positions was unsound. All that can be said against it is that it chanced to be carried out a few days too soon.
Word Of The Day