THE GREAT RIDE.
BY PERCEVAL LANDON.
The newspapers of the world published a notice of the surrender of Bloemfontein on the evening of Thursday, March 15th.
The Boers had wrecked the telegraph line to the south of the town; to the west the field telegraph was useless; yet perhaps not one reader in ten millions stayed a moment to wonder how the news had reached them.
When Lord Roberts left Doornboom the entire expedition was en l'aire. Telegraphic communication was at the mercy of the passing ox or the malicious passer-by, rain and wind were almost equally destructive, and the inevitable breakdown occurred. The wire, aërial or earth-borne, was useless in forty-eight hours, and, so far as outer communication was concerned, Bloemfontein and all around and within it might have been Tristan d'Acunha.
But the London papers published the full account of the surrender on the second day after the capitulation.
The manner in which news was sent to the English papers may perhaps be of interest. It must be remembered that there was then no communication with the south. It was impossible to pick up the cut wire north of Norval's Pont. The line from Kimberley to Boshof lies, even as we write, in a cat's cradle on the veldt. There was no option—the telegrams must be sent through Kimberley and by despatch riders.
Perhaps it is truer to say that one or two London papers did so, for a certain number relied—and with justice—on the recuperative powers of Captain Faussett and his myrmidons of the wire.
To ride a hundred miles across the veldt against time, and against at least two other competing riders, through the enemy's country, and at a moment's notice, is not the least exciting occupation that can be chosen by a light-weight searching for a new sensation.
It combines the certainty of hardship and discomfort with the possibility of being shot; and over and above all is the pressing need of saving every minute of time.
Three despatch riders set out from Bloemfontein during the evening of Tuesday or the earliest dawn of Wednesday. First in order of starting was the Times messenger, second that of Reuter's Agency, third came the "angelos" of the Daily Mail.