INTRODUCTION. xi 



It is the intending emigrant the author more par- 

 ticularly addresses. His advice to those about to try 

 their fortune in South Africa is pertinent and sound. In 

 no sense can he be considered an emigration agent ; he 

 has the interests of his adopted country at heart, and 

 wishes to attract those only who are likely to succeed 

 and make the Colonies more prosperous, and at the 

 same time better their own positions. In his desire to 

 disillusion the sanguine he may have coloured too 

 darkly the difficulties which beset the intrepid settler, 

 but, in all, there is nothing set forth that will deter those 

 of the right sort who resolve to make a fair livelihood in 

 South Africa, and there is much that will help them to 

 decide upon the best districts, seasons, and means for 

 making a beginning. 



The author's simple recountal of his journeyings and 

 doings in the Great Thirst Land and on the banks of 

 the Limpopo bring vividly to mind the wild, weird, 

 waterless waste of sand dunes and the thick jungles 

 on its eastern edge. His recollections of the im- 

 mense herds of large game on the veldt and the 

 mention of his intercourse with hunters like Gordon 

 Gumming and Oswell are as interesting as instructive. 

 We seem to see these mighty hunters, and the shadowy 

 form of the intrepid explorer, David Livingstone, standing 

 before the erect and wiry man who writes of him. 

 The native Kaffirs, the bastard Hottentots and wild 

 bushmen gather round his lumbering ox-drawn waggon 



