Lady Sarah Isabella Augusta Wilson was the aunt of Winston Spencer Churchill. In 1899 she became the first woman war correspondent when she was recruited to cover the Siege of Mafeking for the Daily Mail during the Boer War. She moved to Mafeking with her husband at the start of the war, where he was aide-de-camp to Colonel Robert Baden-Powell. Baden-Powell asked her to leave Mafeking for her own safety after the Boers threatened to storm the British garrison. This she duly did, and set off on a madcap adventure in the company of her maid, traveling through the South African countryside until she was finally captured by the enemy and returned to the town in exchange for a horse thief being held there. Dwindling food supplies became a constant theme in the stories she sent back to the Mail and the situation seemed hopeless when the garrison was hit by an outbreak of malarial typhoid. In this weakened state the Boers managed to penetrate the outskirts of the town but the British stood firm and repelled the assault. ( Summary by Wikipedia )
Mr. Rhodes, how
desirable it would be to induce our sons and young men in general
to imitate some of the characteristics which were the motive
power of his life, and therefore of his success. I noticed
especially the wonderful power of concentration of thought he
possessed, and which he applied to any subject, no matter how
trivial. The variety and scope of his many projects did not
lessen his interest in any one of them. At that time he was
building four railways in Rhodesia, which country was also
pinning its faith to him for its development, its prosperity,
and, indeed, its modus vivendi. Apart from this, Cape
politics, although he then held no official position, were
occupying a great deal of his time and thoughts in view of future
Federation. It was, therefore, marvellous to see him putting his
whole mind to such matters as his prize poultry and beasts at the
home farm, to the disposing of the same in what he termed "my
country," or to the arranging of his priceless collection of
glass—even to the question of a domicile for the baby
lioness lately presented to him. Again, one moment he might be
talking of De Beers business, involving huge sums of money, the
next discussing the progress of his thirty fruit-farms in the
Drakenstein district, where he had no fewer than 100,000
fruit-trees; another time his horse-breeding establishment at
Kimberley was engaging his attention, or, nearer home, the
road-making and improvements at Groot Schuurr, where he even knew
the wages paid to the 200 Cape boys he was then employing. Mr.
Rhodes was always in favour of doing things on a large scale,
made easy, certainly, by his millionaire's purse. Sometimes a
gardener or bailiff would ask for two or three dozen rose or
fruit trees. "There is no use," he would exclaim impatiently, "in
two dozen of anything. My good man, you should count in hundreds
and thousands, not dozens. T
