Kitchener to destroy the power of the khalifa in the Soudan. His vivid descriptions of this expedition were collected after their appearance in the 'Daily Mail' into what proved his most popular book, 'With Kitchener to Khartum.' In the winter of 1898-9 Steevens went out to India in the track of Lord Curzon, the newly appointed viceroy, and his record of the journey ultimately took the form of the volume called 'In India.' Returning from India in 1899, he went to Rennes to report the second trial of Captain Alfred Dreyfus, and these articles, after serving their purpose in the 'Daily Mail,' were reissued in the book entitled 'The Tragedy of Dreyfus.'
On the conclusion of the Dreyfus trial in September 1899 Steevens was ordered by his editor to South Africa, where the pending negotiations between the Transvaal government and the British government rendered war probable. On the actual outbreak of hostilities in October he joined the army which under Sir George White undertook the defence of Natal. Within three weeks of the opening of active operations, on 1 Nov., that force was besieged in Ladysmith. The siege of Ladysmith cost Steevens his life. On 13 Dec. he sickened of enteric fever, and when he appeared to be on the road to convalescence he died at five in the afternoon on 15 Jan. 1900. He was buried in Ladysmith cemetery at midnight of the same day. The town was relieved on 28 Feb.
The articles Steevens had sent home from South Africa were issued posthumously in a volume called 'From Cape Town to Ladysmith,' with a 'last chapter' by Mr. Vernon Blackburn. A ' Memorial edition ' of Steevens's collected works is in course of publication, under the editorship of his friends Mr. G. S. Street and Mr. Blackburn. The first volume, 'Things Seen' (1900), brings together Steevens's scattered contributions to magazines and newspapers, and contains an appreciative memoir of the author by his friend Mr. W. E. Henley. The second volume was called 'Glimpses of Three Nations' (1901).
Steevens's portrait was painted by the Hon. John Collier in 1898; a replica was presented by Steevens's schoolfellows to the City of London school, where it was unveiled on 23 Oct. 1900. A reproduction in photogravure of Mr. Collier's portrait is prefixed to the 'Memorial edition' of Steevens's works.
In 1894 he married Mrs. Rogerson, who was many years his senior; she survived him.
As a man Steevens was distinguished by admirable courage and resolution. It was his endeavour in journalism to present in words with all possible vividness, frankness, and terseness what he saw, thought, and felt. The success he often achieved, especially in the miscellaneous articles which were collected after his death in the volume called 'Things Seen,' was sufficient to prove that his capacities were in harmony with his aims. But only a small fraction of his work does genuine justice to his powers. The hurried conditions under which he ordinarily wrote lent an aspect of crudity to many of his books and articles, and often gave the reader the uncomfortable impression of a vain straining after effect. His premature death prevented the fulfilment of his high literary promise.
[The appreciative Memoir by Mr. W. E. Henley prefixed to Things Seen, 1900; The Last Chapter by Mr. Vernon Blackburn in From Cape Town to Ladysmith, 1900; Memoir by Mr. B. L. Abrahams in City of London School Mag. for March 1900, with early portrait from photograph.]
STEPHENS or STEVENS, THOMAS (1549?–1619), Jesuit missionary and author, born about 1549, is described (Foley, Records S.J. vii. 1453) as a native of 'Bulstan' in the diocese of Salisbury; he may therefore be identified with the Thomas Stevens, native of Bourton, Dorset, who was elected scholar of Winchester in 1564, his age being given as thirteen (Kirby, Winchester Scholars, p. 139). According to Hakluyt he was for a time at New College, Oxford, but his name is not to be found in
the registers. He found a friend and patron in one Thomas Pound, and the two formed a resolution to proceed to Rome and enter the Society of Jesus. Pound was, however, arrested on the eve of his departure, and remained in prison for thirty years. Stephens went to Rome alone, and at St. Andrew's College there he was admitted to the Society of Jesus on 20 Oct. 1575, his age being given as twenty-six. At the Roman College he studied philosophy under Garnett and theology under Parsons. On 4 Nov. 1578 he drew up an account of his friend Pound, and a petition from him to be admitted, in spite of his absence, to the Society of Jesus; Stephens's account is extant among the archives at Brussels and at Stonyhurst (Collectio Cardwelli, i. 16; Foley, iii. 580–4).
Meanwhile a perusal of the life and works of St. Francis Xavier had animated Stephens with the desire to become a missionary in the East Indies. He sailed from Lisbon in 1579, and, on arriving at the Portuguese
