INTRODUCTION. 



At the request of my life's friend and dear 

 companion, my staunch, loving little wife, and our 

 dear children, I have given myself the task of writing 

 a resume of facts and incidents which have come to 

 my knowledge during a residence in South Africa 

 since August, 1850. 



I will avoid personalities as much as possible 

 and will merely mention the part I have taken 

 personally in the works of development, especially 

 in the Transvaal, to give an idea of the position 

 from which I have viewed passing events. I have 

 avoided statistics which have been amply supplied 

 by blue-books, newspapers, and other writers. I 

 have tried to condense this synopsis, and find that it 

 has, nevertheless, grown in dimensions far beyond 

 what I intended, and yet a vast amount of pertinent 

 matter had to be left out, and I find that although 

 most distasteful to me, in writing from memory of 

 personal experience, the " Ego " is unduly prominent 

 if perhaps unavoidable. 



As regards what I have written about the 

 Transvaal during a residence of thirty-five years 

 from 1855 to 1889, and since then in annual visits 

 till 1910, I would mention that I closely identified 

 myself with the civil and political life of the Dutch 

 farmers or Boers. (" Boeren " as they are usually 

 termed), with whom I was on the most friendly foot- 

 ing, and with whom I worked in various capacities, 

 as Member of Volksraad for the district of Pretoria, 



