Chapter I. 



WHAT HE WAS. 



The English language, that great snowball of 

 a tongue which gathers foreign words on prairie, 

 steppe or veld, has licked up in South Africa a 

 rich layer of expressiveness- Of these borrowed 

 words no one suits its purpose better or has a 

 greater wealth of meaning than * gogga \ that 

 nickname which, applied to my hero derisively in 

 life, I propose shall stick to him in death and do 

 him honour. 



For there has hitherto not been any true 

 equivalent in English, with all its richness, for 

 this interesting and comprehensive Afrikaans 

 word, whose g's are all pronounced, be it noted, 

 with that type of gutturality which we find in the 

 Scottish word * loch \ Just imagine what it 

 means ! It stands alone to signify the millions 

 of creatures that crawl and creep and sometimes 

 fly, and it even includes that low grade of living 

 things called vermin. It is indeed the first and 

 most convenient symbol with which we satisfy 

 the babbling babe, as he grubs about amongst 

 the stones, wondering what on earth are all these 

 scurrying things he is disturbing. They are all 



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