THE FOREBODINGS OP KITCHENER

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2848, 12 August 1916, Page 14

THE FOREBODINGS OP KITCHENER

"I KNOAV 1 SHALL DIE AT SEA."

"One remarkable revelation may without impropriety be made about Lord Kitchener," says the Manchester "Guardian." "It is that ho had a sort of foreboding of an accident at sea. So much was this tlio case that he ndrer crossed from Dover to Calais without wearing a lifebelt waistcoat, one that he had specially made for him in Egypt before ho made his famous advance on Khartum. Though so oftpn on the sea, and an excellent sailor, ho detested a sea passage, and never felt, comfortable on board any ship. He always complained that tho sea affected big otherwise excellent sight—excellent, that is, considering his age and how much ho had been exposed to a tropical sun. t Another curious point was that, whilst'he always acquired curios in any part of the world in which ho might be,, he took care never to allow his purchases to be oil the vessel on which he was a passenger." . /

In connection with the above, the "Petit Journal" quotes the following: —"When Lord Kitchener came, some three months ago, to the British front he met at Dunkirk Commandant de Balancourt, to whom he mentioned that a Jack Johnson had dropped not far from him. 'That did not alarm me,' said the Field-Marshal, 'because I know that I shall die at sea.' "

Lieut.-Colonol Oswald A. Fitzgerald, Lord Kitchener's personal military secretary, who perished with his chief, paid a visit shortly before his death to some friends in tho Orkneys whoso homo commands a wonderful view of the sea in which the Hampshire sank. On tho day after his arrival Colonel Fitzgerald strolled along tho shore with some other members of the bouse party, and remarked on the beauty of. ..tlm land and seascape.

"It is the kind of pla'co that one. would choose to die in," ho said, quietly. \ "A place to liv.o in, rither!" protested one of his companions.

"No," said Colonel Fitzgerald, "there is a sort of stately grandeur'here that one instinctively associates with solemn things."

A few davs lat"r. when' he was in London, Colonel Fitzgerald wrote to his friends: "I shall be sailing past you to-morrow, and shall think of my pleasant visit and of our talks." On the dav after the. arrival of his. letter his body was wnsh"d up on tho coast which lie had admired.