CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTION.
It was in April of last year, 1877, that I first formed a plan
of paying an immediate visit to South Africa. The idea that
I would one day do so had long loomed in the distance before
me. Except the South African group I had seen all our
great groups of Colonies,—among which in my own mind
I always include the United States, for to my thinking, our
Colonies are the lands in which our cousins, the descendants
of our forefathers, are living and still speaking our language.
I had become more or less acquainted I may say with all
these offshoots from Great Britain, and had written books
about them all,—except South Africa. To "do" South Africa
had for some years past been on my mind, till at last there
was growing on me the consciousness that I was becoming
too old for any more such "doing." Then, suddenly, the
newspapers became full of the Transvaal Republic. There
was a country not indeed belonging to Great Britain but
which once had been almost British, a country, with which
Britain was much too closely concerned to ignore it,—a
country, which had been occupied by British subjects, and
