Nearly every person with whom I have conversed since my return from
South Africa, has appeared to take great interest in the Kaffirs, the
wild animals, and other inhabitants of that country.
I am not vain enough to suppose that my friends have merely pretended
this interest for the sole object of allowing me an opportunity of
talking, and have thereby deluded me into a belief of affording
amusement. But I really think that the opinions which they have
expressed are genuine, and that perhaps the same wish for information on
the subject of the Kaffirs, or the wild beasts of the Cape, may be more
widely extended than I have been able personally to prove.
Most men who have written on South Africa, have been either sporting
giants, scientific men, or travellers who have gone over ground never
before trodden by the white man. I am neither of these.
The first I am not, for the blood spilled by me was but a drop compared
to the ocean that many have caused to flow in this land.
Unfortunately I am not scientific; but, perhaps, from this very defect,
I may become the more intelligible to the general reader of the
following pages, who may comprehend my simple names for simple things,
rather than those of a polysyllabic character.
I know that I have sunk miserably in the opinion of _savants_, in
consequence of my inability to tell whether or not the _Terstraemiaceae_
grew luxuriantly in Africa. I only knew that the plains bore beautiful
flowers, and I learnt their Kaffir names; that the bush had fine trees,
some with, sweet-scented blossoms, others with fruit, and I knew which
fruit was good to eat.
By travellers, I may be considered presumptuous in attempting to write
on South Africa, when I never crossed the Vaal river or penetrated far
into the interior; but I must trust that they will pardon my temerity.
I was obliged, from circumstances, to pursue the game nearer my home,
which required "more patient search and vigil long," for the creatures
had become more wild or savage than those animals in the interior that
were seldom disturbed.
From sketches and a rough journal compiled on the spot, I have formed
this book.