32 SOUTH AFRICA. 



Zulu troops, invincible by any less powerful 

 opponents than the white invader. Varied by an 

 occasional visit to England, and other parts of the 

 v/orld, the greater portion of half a century has 

 been passed by me under canvas on African soil 

 with unusual immunity from the endemic diseases 

 prevalent in so many parts of the Dark Continent 

 or being once laid up from any other cause than 

 an occasional fracture or strain. Within the last 

 five years, however, a wandering life has been 

 succeeded by retirement in the sleepy hollow of 

 a Colonial village, in view of the educational 

 advantages for a young family growing up around 

 me. In such places life undergoes a process of 

 oxidation, and the only excitements indulged in 

 by the inhabitants apparently consist of a chronic 

 round of religious dissipation, either in corybantic 

 or other forms which I fail to appreciate at their 

 possible value, but in the midst of which fate seems 

 to have ordained me to grasp the fag end of a 

 long life. 



