The Tin Pot of Bechuanaland. Very rare Vryburg printing? 1885?

Bechuanaland Field Force, 1885, The Tin Pot of Bechuanaland. no place: no publisher, no date (but likely Vryburg: Royal Engineers press, 1885).

17 x 10.5 cm, 3 pages. Folded a little carelessly, very slight fingering. Very good condition.

A delightful piece of doggerel verse - a parody on 'The grand old Duke of York':

'Had twice two thousand men,

He marched them up through Stellaland,

And marched them down again.

The poem is titled, 'The Medal of the B. F. F.' [Bechuanaland Field Force]

The Bechuanaland Field Force, under General Sir Charles Warren, was sent out to South Africa late in 1884 to settle disturbances arising from the insurgency of Boer freebooters who had set up the twin republics of Goshen and Stellaland in Tswana territory. No battle took place, diplomacy won the day, and hence the resemblance to the Great old Duke of York who, having 'marched his men to the top of the hill, marched them down again'.

A slight but extremely rare little item from a little-known campaign.

I am also offering a variant printing on slightly pink paper in a separate Bobshop listing. It is unclear which impression has chronological priority, but they are undoubtedly both contemporaneous with the campaign (hence 1885) and since they come from the same family archive as other ephemeral items printed on the Royal Engineers press in Vryburg, it is reasonable to assume that this little souvenir was also so printed for distribution among men who had participated in the campaign.