Journal of Travel and Natural History. 



CHAPMAN'S TRAVELS IN SOUTH AFRICA* 



WITH the single exceiDtion of Dr Livingstone, no white man 

 has probably ever had such an intimate and wide-spread 

 acquaintance with the interior of South Africa as James Chapman. 

 For fifteen years (from 1849 to 1863) he roamed to and fro in the 

 interior of the country, trading and hunting over previously un- 

 known regions, often unconsciously running neck and neck with 

 Dr Livingstone in his discoveries. He was on the Zambesi near 

 the Victoria Falls before Dr Livingstone, and, but for the obstacles 

 interposed by the natives, he would have been their first discoverer; 

 and the idea of crossing the continent seems to have occurred to 

 the minds of both about the same time. Baines, Anderson, and 

 other explorers, who had accompanied or met with Chapman, have 

 made every reader of South African travel familiar with his name. 

 They will be glad, therefore, that those who knew more of the 

 man, and of the stores of geographical and other information which 

 he possessed, should have urged him to publish an account of his 

 travels, and of the districts he had visited. We believe the credit 

 of having procured the publication of the two volumes which we 

 are about to review is mainly due to Sir George Grey, the former 

 governor of the Cape Colony, before whose intelligent appreciation 

 and persistent recommendation Mr Chapman's reluctance to come 

 before the public as an author has given way. 



By employing a literary gentleman in this country to arrange 

 and select from Mr Chapman's ample materials, the difficulties 

 arising from his distance from England, want of time, and of special 

 literary qualifications have been got rid of Mr Chapman kept 

 regular diaries during all his journeys, and these and other papers 

 have been put in the hand first of one editor in London (Mr 

 Forester), and on his death into those of another (we believe Mr 

 Hunt), and the cream of an immense pile of matter has been thus 

 skimmed, and is now given to the public ; or perhaj^s it would be a 



* Travels in the Interior of South Africa ; comprising fifteen years' hunting 

 and trading, with journeys across the Continent from Natal to Walvisch Bay, 

 and visits to Lake N'Gami and the Victoria Falls. By James Chapman, 

 F. R. G. S. 2 vols. London, 1 868. 



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