CHAPTER III.
ENGLISH HISTORY.
I have to say that I feel almost ashamed of the headings
given to these initiatory chapters of my book as I certainly
am not qualified to write a history of South Africa.
Nor, were I able to do so, could it be done in a few
pages. And, again, it has already been done and that so
recently that there is not as yet need for further work of the
kind. But it is not possible to make intelligible the present
condition of any land without some reference to its antecedents.
And as it is my object to give my reader an idea
of the country as I saw it I am obliged to tell something of
what I myself found it necessary to learn before I could
understand that which I heard and saw. When I left England
I had some notion more or less correct as to Hottentots,
Bushmen, Kafirs, and Zulus. Since that my mind has gradually
become permeated with Basutos, Griquas, Bechuanas,
Amapondos, Suazies, Gaikas, Galekas, and various other
native races,—who are supposed to have disturbed our
serenity in South Africa, but whose serenity we must also
have disturbed very much,—till it has become impossible to
look at the picture without realizing something of the
identity of those people. I do not expect to bring any
