ves of the valuables,
while tobacco, cigarettes, cakes, chocolates were so plentifully
strewed about that the young Boers even invited their prisoners to
help themselves, as the General was going to burn everything. And he
did burn the entire station.

In his forty-seventh report (1901) the Postmaster-General states:

The Army Post Office is still in operation in South Africa.
The staff now consists of 7 officers and about 540 men. The
weekly mail for the Army Post Office contains on an average
204,000 letters and 115,300 packets of printed matter; and
it is estimated that during the year ended 31st March, 1901,
11,551,300 letters were sent to the troops and 9,250,000 were
received from them. During the same period the parcels sent
out to the forces in South Africa by post amounted to 534,245,
the largest number despatched on any one occasion, namely,
on the 1st of December, 1900, being 19,672. About 8745 such
parcels are now sent each week.

As to the magnitude and difficulties of the work of the Army
Post Office, I cannot do better than quote the following
paragraph from Earl Roberts' despatch of the 16th August
last:--

"The magnitude of the task set the Military Postal Service may
be appreciated when it is realised that the Army Mails from
England have exceeded in bulk the whole of the mails arriving
for the inhabitants of Cape Colony and Natal, and contained
each week little short of 750,000 letters, newspapers, and
parcels for the troops. No little credit is therefore due to
the department under Major Treble in the first few months,
and for the greater part of the time under Lieut.-Colonel J.
Greer, Director of Military Postal Services, for the way in
which it has endeavoured to cope with the vast quantity of
correspondence, bearing in mind the incessant manner in which
the troops have been moved about the country, the transport
difficulties which had to be encountered, the want of postal
experience in the bulk of the personnel of the corps, and the
inadequacy of the establishments laid down for the several
organisations."

His Majesty has been pleased to confer the honour of C.M.G. on
Messrs. Greer and Treble in acknowledgment of their services.

The forty-eighth report (1902) mentions no change of any importance in
the Army Postal Service in South Africa, and gives the week