Mafeking

Mafeking, a town in the north-east corner of Cape Colony, connected in 1894 with the railway system from Capetown. Hence in 1896 Jameson (q.v.) started on his disastrous raid into the Transvaal. On the outbreak of the Transvaal war in 1899 Mafeking was invested by the Boer forces, but was heroically defended by Colonel Baden-Powell with a small garrison, and after a siege of seven months, was relieved on 17th May 1900.