Described variously as 'a solid, well-balanced man' and 'adventurous in an unassuming way', he was the quintessence of Victorian intrepid- ness. During the 1870 Franco-Prussian war, he attached himself to a front-line French military unit; 1878 saw him plodding on foot around Aibania and Montenegro (20 years later he was back in the Balkans, for the war between Greece and Turkey). Representing the Morning Post, he toured the world in company with the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall, and in the spring of 1891 left for the desolate and rebel-infested mountains of Kashmir, on this occasion as correspondent for The Times. He covered Kitchener's Soudan Expedition, the spanish-American war in Cuba, the French expedition against Madagascar, the Anglo-Boer war and the Russo-Japanese conflict of 1904. He was severely wounded in South Africa - in an engagement during which he misinterpreted what he took to be a Boer surrender signal - and subsequently had his right arm amputated. In 1894 he had visited the new territory of Rhodesia and his assessment of the country, presented in a series of articles written for The Times, later appeared in book form under the title of Rhodesia of Today.

After a lengthy retirement, Knight died in 1925.