"Both the white and coloured men originally received eight ounces of bread. The allowance has now been reduced to six, but a quart of soup is given to make up the deficiency. Half a gallon of sowan porridge a day will sustain life. The recipients are of three classes: those who receive it in lieu of two ounces of bread; those who wish to purchase food over and above the quantity to which they are entitled; those who are absolutely destitute, both black and white, and who receive the porridge free. It has been suggested that the natives should not be charged for sowan porridge, but it is thought unwise to pauperize either blacks or whites. If any profit has been made from the sale by the end of the siege, it will be employed in buying grain for the many native women and children in Mafeking who have been involved in a quarrel which is not theirs.
"The horse soup is made from the carcases of animals which had ceased to be serviceable and those killed by the enemy's fire, as well as horses and donkeys purchased from individuals who can no longer afford to keep them. This soup is unpopular among the natives, but this is due rather to prejudice than to its quality.
"The distribution of supplies is entirely under Imperial control. The Army Service Corps possesses a slaughter-house, a bakery, and a grocery at which the authorities receive and distribute all vegetables, and it receives and distributes milk to the hospital, to women and children, and to men who have been medically certified to need it.
"At present the hospital is supplied with white bread, and it is hoped that the supply will be continued. Hospital comforts are issued to such as are in need of them, both in and out patients, on receipt of an order from a medical officer. For the nurses and doctors, who work day and night, the authorities endeavoured to provide slightly better rations than those available for the general community. Our sources of supply have been chiefly through Mr. Weil, who had a large stock on hand for the provisioning of the garrison, until the contract terminated at the beginning of February. Since then supplies have been collected from various merchants, storekeepers, and private persons, and stored in the army Service Corps depôt, and from the original Army Service Corps stock, of which forage and oats formed a great proportion. Fresh beef is obtained by purchase from a private individual named White, and in a lesser degree from the natives.
"Breadstuffs are obtained, like groceries, by commandeering the stocks of various merchants and private persons."
Shortly after this report was published, the special correspondent of Reuter's Agency announced that a further reduction in the supply of breadstuffs had taken place. "We are now able to receive only four ounces daily," he continued. "This, however, has been to some extent compensated by the issue of sowan porridge to whites as well as blacks. We have still a fair supply of fresh vegetables, which the Chinese are retailing at famine prices. As vegetables, however, are perishable commodities they are still cheap in comparison with whisky, which is 25s. a bottle. Eggs are 18s. a dozen, fowls 20s. each, jam 2s. 6d. a small tin."
The same correspondent, alas! remarks in a despatch of somewhat later date that "excellent brawn is now being made, and is eaten by both whites and blacks. It is made from ox and horse hides." He adds with a brevity which has a good deal of pathos and humour in it, that "the garrison is very cheerful, very dry, and very hungry." Most of the necessarily brief despatches from Mafeking in the most trying days of the siege have a spice of humour and a good deal of pathos in them. On May 3rd, Lady Sarah Wilson cabled the following laconic message to Lady Georgiana Curzon:—"Mafeking, May 3rd.—Breakfast consisted of horse sausages; lunch, minced mule and curried locusts. Well." "There is great demand for horse side and brawn," says Reuter's special correspondent on May 5th. But perhaps the most significant, and certainly the most impressive, message of all was that of Major Baillie, dated May 1st, which will surely be remembered when many incidents of the Boer War are forgotten:—
"This morning the Boers attacked us.
"The result was as usual.
"There is an aching void here.