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VISIT TO SOUTH AFRICA. 
I am painfully conscious of the criticisms that I lay myself open to 
in attempting to lecture after such a flying visit, but I do not claim to 
have done or seen anything extraordinary, but merely to have spent a 
few pleasant months perhaps a little out of the beaten track, and 
certainly in a country where, as the Christy Minstrels would say, “ there 
are razors flying in de air.” 
If I begin by telling you the route I traversed, you will be able to 
follow me on the maps you are each provided with. 
I landed at Cape Town and stayed there for a week, and then went 
up country by the railway you will see marked, past De Aar to 
Kimberley. I meant to have stayed at Kimberley and to have gone 
over the mines, but when I found that I should not be able to get out 
of Rhodesia because of the Matabele rising, except by the way I was 
going in, by Mafeking, I decided to leave Kimberley till my return 
journey. I therefore went straight on to Mafeking, which was the end 
of the railway. 
Thence I went by coach to Buluwayo, and from Buluwayo I made 
one or two trips into the country, once out to the scene of Mr. Rhodes’ 
grand Indaba on the Matoppos, and further south down towards the 
Gwanda District. I meant to have gone down the Tuli Road, and so 
into the North Transvaal, but communication was not yet properly 
established. 
Back from Mafeking to Kimberley, I then visited the diamond mines 
there. I do not mean to say anything about these mines, although a 
good deal might be said about them, because I shall not have time. 
From Kimberley I went to De Aar, which is the junction for Port 
Elizabeth, and north again for the Transvaal, to Johannesburg. 
From Johannesburg I went into “ the garden of Africa,” Natal, 
taking en route the Boer battlefields. I rode and drove over the battle¬ 
fields, climbing Majuba Hill, and rejoined the railway at Ingogo. 
Thence to Maritzburg, where I found hospitable gunners and lancers, 
and on to Durban. From Durban I went back to Glencoe Junction 
and off into Zululand, visiting the battlefields of Isandlwhana and 
Rorke’s Drift. 
I then returned to the Transvaal for the Christmas races, after which 
capital meeting I started for the Cape Colony. 
When we got to DeAar Mr. Rhodes joined the train from Kimberley, 
and I travelled with Mr. Rhodes, General Sir Frederick Carrington and 
their party, all the way to England. 
That is the general outline of my trip. 
I should recommend anybody who thought of taking such a trip to 
go from Johannesburg down to Delagoa Bay, a most beautiful bit of 
railway, to go out by sea and come into the country again at Durban ; 
and then go up the line, taking the battlefields on the way. I think 
that would be more satisfactory, but the fever was then too bad in 
Delagoa Bay to allow me to do as I had intended. 
The mere voyage out does not call for any particular comment ; ship 
life, as you all know, is much of a muchness everywhere, but as com¬ 
pared with the voyage to India the trip to the Cape is one of the most 
enjoyable sea-faring things — generally not a ripple after leaving 
Madeira, and only a sixteen days’ journey from England. 
The mention of Madeira reminds me of an incident that rather 
exposed the nautical knowledge of one of my fellow passengers. 
Many went ashore at Madeira and this gentleman, whose acquaintance 
