The Monthly, March 2006, No. 10

In March 1900 in Bloemfontein, in the Orange Free State, Andrew ‘Banjo' Paterson attended a dinner hosted by the commander of the British forces occupying the town. The 36-year-old Sydney solicitor and poet was in South Africa to cover Australia's contribution to the stoush against the upstart Boers and he found himself seated beside the greatest literary celebrity of the Empire, the laureate of imperialism himself, Rudyard Kipling.

Kipling was not unaware of his dining companion's accomplishments. ‘The Man from Snowy River' and ‘Clancy of the...