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 Liter atiwe of the South African JVar 303 Mr. Churchill's book on the Natal campaign is of a different character. It will be remembered that, after a few years' service as a subaltern in the Ninth Hussars, that officer found a soldier's duties in peace time not sufficiently exacting to satisfy the demands of ambition and his desire for a strenuous life. He determined to follow in his father's footsteps, and exchanged his sword for a political career. But in the intervals of wooing popular favor he found time to observe as a war correspondent the operations of General Shafter in Cuba. When the South African war broke out, Churchill accepted a similar mission from the Morning Post, and as the correspondent of that journal was attached to Sir Redvers Buller's force in Natal. Made prisoner by the Boers in an armored train, which was pushed toward the Tugela at the end of November, 1899, he was taken to Pretoria, but escaping from his jailers made his way across the veld to Delagoa Bay, and thence returned to Durban in time to be present at Spion Kop and the actions which resulted in the relief of Ladysmith. In this latter phase he aban- doned the pen and did good service as an officer in an irregular corps. The narrative of these adventures has a romance of its own, enhanced by the writer's present position and possible future, but it may be ranked rather as the exposition of a remarkable personality than as a contribution to scientific history. Nor, too, can it be fairly held that the war correspondents with Lord Roberts's army in its advance through the Free State and Transvaal made as a body any valuable additions to historical litera- ture. To this statement exception might be made in favor of With General French and the Cavalry in South Africa^ by Charles S. Goldman. Mr. Goldman was attached to General French's com- mand as a correspondent from the date of that officer's landing in Natal, and remained with him until the occupation of Barberton. His book deals with all that skilful fencing at Colesberg which first established French's reputation, with the relief of Kim- berley, with the holding up of Cronje at Paardeberg — the finest cavalry feat of the war, with the occupation of Bloemfontein, with Sauna's Post, and with the whole of the subsequent advance to Pretoria, and thence eastward to the Portuguese border. The first chapters moreover describe the Natal fights at Elandslaagte and Lombard's Kop. The author*, as a civilian, pretends to no personal military knowledge, but he was fortunate enough to win the con- fidence of French's staff, and in the preparation of his book is be- lieved to have enjoyed the assistance of French's right hand — that ' London, 1902.