ROBERT ANDREW BUNTINE 259 



Boer war, being amongst those besieged in Ladysmith 

 In the Zulu rebellion, he was the P.M.O, of the forces in 

 the field. 



Dr. Kuntine married, in 1898, Miss M. Pinson, the 

 daughter of the late Mr. Henry Pinson, one of Natal's 

 old settlers. Mrs. Buntine died in January, 1903. vshortly 

 after the birth of her younger daughter. The loss of his 

 wife, to Avhom he was devotedly attached, was a blow 

 from which he never entirely recovered. 



In 1912 he sent his two daughters to England to com- 

 X)lete their education, and naturally when the war broke 

 out felt a good deal of anxiety as to their general wel- 

 fare, and consequently paid a flying visit to them in 1915, 

 and again in 1917, intending on this latter occasion to 

 bring them out with him^ but as events tragically turned 

 out, most unfortunateh^ did not do so. He then went 

 home in May of last year, and, after doing war work as 

 a member of a Board of Examiners, got a passage for 

 himself and the two girls in October, 1918, when tliey 

 left England in the ill-fated Galway Castle. When the 

 Tessel was torpedoed, his two daughters were put into 

 one of the boats, but Dr. Buntine., with the truly noble 

 spirit which he carried through all his life, remained 

 behind, and left room in the boat for the women and 

 wounded soldiers. Unfortunately the boat in which his 

 daughters were placed was swamped almost directly it 

 was lowered and when the doctor saw this, he imme- 

 diately jumped overboard to their rescue. The three of 

 them clung to some floating wreckage for some hours, 

 and after being 4 J hours in the water, Noelle, the younger 

 daughter, was rescued, but Dr. Buntine and the elder 

 daughter, Jessie, had succumbed to the cold and been 

 drowned before help arrived. 



It is no exaggeration to say that Dr. Buntjne's death 

 w^as felt as an acute personal loss by hundreds of people 

 in ^laritzburg, who looked on and up to him, not only as 

 a trusted medical adviser, but as a true and stauncli 

 friend. It is a thousand pities that such a good life 

 should have been wantonly destroyed in such a barbarous 

 manner. G. E. O. T. 



