158 THE REGION OF THE BARU:6 



say there will be many among my readers who will 

 say, " Oh, but surely you are losing sight of South 

 Africa, with its teeming millions of active workers, 

 its thousand industries and vast cultivated areas." 

 But indeed I do not forget these things, any more 

 than I forget how small a portion of the great 

 continent the corner we have in our mind's eye 

 when we speak of South Africa really is. For 

 over two centuries Europeans have been in South 

 Africa ; they have fought for the country and 

 established themselves in cities ; they have dug 

 and delved and pecked and blasted for the gold 

 and precious stones it contains ; they have set 

 up governments and buildings which they have 

 adorned and gilded and frescoed — some of the 

 former remain, of course, and some are already 

 well-nigh forgotten ; but, when we come to travel 

 through South Africa, and leave the outskirts of 

 those populous centres where greed and rascality 

 wear an aspect which is almost a complete disguise, 

 what do we see? But little to point out with 

 exultation, I fear, as the outcome of the sacrifice 

 of so much blood and treasure and principle and 

 toil. If, therefore, we find in the southern portion 

 of the country so small a result, so inconspicuous an 

 evidence of our efforts to establish an occupancy 

 leaving some outward indication of its efficacy 

 on the country as a whole, what shall be said of 

 those remoter and vaster regions to the northward, 

 which are only now becoming dimly and perhaps 

 impatiently conscious of the commencement of 

 European intrusion? Their slumber has been a 

 long one, and their awakening is not yet — perhaps, 



