FIRST YEARS IN SOUTH AFRICA. 31 



notoriety even of the best quality, and therefore 

 do not clash with those who are. 



Now any old or, for that matter, young lady 

 may travel over the length and breadth of South 

 Africa with as much safety from human annoy- 

 ance as in any part of the world perhaps, quite 

 unconscious of the cost in life to the old pioneers 

 whose unrecorded exertions smoothed the way, 

 and many of whose bones rest in the unmarked 

 sepulchres of the wilderness. 



I am not concerned here to indulge or bore the 

 reader with a recital of the personal adventures 

 either in contest with savage men or animals which 

 fell to my lot, as African literature is replete 

 enough with stories of that kind from more facile 

 pens than I can wield, but it may perhaps be per- 

 missible to mention that my wanderings of more 

 than thirty years ago had already made me 

 acquainted with immense tracts of the countries 

 bounded to the north by the Zambesi, to the west 

 by the Great Thirstland, and to the east by the 

 Indian Ocean. Umsillegasse (Mossilikatze of the 

 Boers) had settled down in the territories now 

 annexed by the Chartered Company of Mr. Rhodes 

 and conquered all the neighbouring tribes with 



