PREFACE 



These sketches and reminiscences — for they profess to be 

 nothing more — have been written at odd times, and amid 

 the press of other work. Yet I may hope that for those 

 whose eyes now turn eagerly to South Africa some shght 

 amusement, perchance some information, may be found 

 within these pages. 



To me the scenes of which these pages treat were 

 profoundly interesting. To have wandered in the footsteps 

 of Paterson and Sparrmann, of Le Vaillant and Barrow, 

 of Burchell and of Campbell, and to have compared the 

 wonderful fauna of their day with the fauna of the 

 present ; to have sojourned among the primitive up- 

 country Boers, and heard their old-world lore and legend, 

 and noted their quaint customs ; all these were experiences 

 of never-ending charm. 



In addition to the chapters on sport and natural 

 history, I have endeavoured to indicate in the chapters 

 headed A Karroo Farm, The Boer of To-day, and The 

 Future of Cape Colony, some of the present aspects of 

 colonial life. The Cape has for too long been a neglected 

 and forgotten Colony, far too thinly settled by our own 



