SOUTH AFRICA FIFTY YEARS AGO 35 



thus, as they assured me, in some mysterious way made their 

 hearts white. 



There is a fascination to me in the remembrance of the 

 past in all its connections : the free life, the self-dependence, 

 the boring into what was then a new country ; the feeling as you 

 lay under your caross that you were looking at the stars from 

 a point on the earth whence no other European had ever seen 

 them ; the hope that every patch of bush, every little rise, 

 was the only thing between you and some strange sight or 

 scene these are with me still ; and were I not a married man 

 with children and grandchildren, I believe I should head 

 back into Africa again, and end my days in the open air. It is 

 useless to tell me of the advantages of civilisation ; civilised 

 man runs wild much easier and sooner than the savage becomes 

 tame. I think it desirable, however, that he should be suffi- 

 ciently educated, before he doffs his clothes, to enjoy the 

 change by comparison. Take the word of one who has tried 

 both states : there are charms in the wild ; the ever-increasing, 

 never-satisfied needs of the tame my soul cannot away with. 



But I am writing of close upon fifty years ago. Africa is 

 nearly used up ; she belongs no more to the Africans and the 

 beasts ; Boers, gold-seekers, diamond-miners and experimental 

 farmers all of them (from my point of view) mistakes have 

 changed the face of her. A man must be a first-rate sports- 

 man now to keep himself and his family ; houses stand where 

 we once shot elephants, and the railway train will soon be 

 whistling and screaming through all hunting-fields south of the 

 Zambesi. 



D 2 



