15 5 

 C 4-1 



PEE FACE. 



At the request of the publishers, I have, against my 

 own judgment, consented to revise the letters from 

 South Africa which I wrote to Tlte Baily GrapJiic, 

 in 1891, with a view to their j)ublication in the form 

 of a book. The critics of literary and epistolary 

 efforts, who daily inform the public through the 

 columns of the Press, pronounced with tolerable 

 unanimity, that these letters of mine were devoid 

 of merit and unworthy of perusal. To this judg- 

 ment I ought to have bowed, l3ut then, on the 

 other hand, the ^proprietors of The Daily Gvapldc, 

 who, for the purposes of these letters, were my 

 employers and Avho occupied the most favourable 

 position for the formation of a ^^I'actical opinion 

 as to whether these letters did or did not displease 

 tiie public, expressed to me very definitely and 

 without qualification their satisfaction with the 

 productions of which I was the author, but for 

 ^vhich they were mainly responsible. A question 

 of difficulty arises. Either the |)ublic read the 

 letters, or it did not read them. If the ^Dublic did 

 not read tlie letters, then the proj^rietors of The 

 Dailij (Jraplilc would have been dissatisfied at the 



