that I have heard have been made available for what they were worth,—as far as it was within my power to do so,—before they were forgotten. A book so written must often be inaccurate; but it may possibly have something in it of freshness to atone for its inaccuracies. In writing such a book a man has for a time to fill himself exclusively with his subject,—to make every thought that he has South African for the time, to give all his energy to the work in hand, to talk about it, fight about it, think about it, write about it, and dream about it. This I have endeavoured to do, and here is the result. To spend five years in studying a country and then to come home and devote five more to writing a book about it, is altogether out of my way. The man who can do it will achieve much more than I shall. But had I ever attempted it in writing other books I should have failed worse than I have done. Had I thought of it in regard to South Africa my book would never have been written at all.
I fancy that I owe an apology to some whom I have answered rather shortly when they have scolded me for not making a longer stay in their own peculiar spots. "You have come to write a book about South Africa and you have no right to go away without devoting a day to my" sugar plantation, or distillery, or whatever the interesting enterprise may have been. "You have only been three days in our town and I don't think you are doing us justice." It has been hard to answer these accusations with a full explanation of all the facts,—including the special fact,—unimportant to all but one or two, that South Africa with all its charms is not so comfortable at my present age as the
