on my memory for my facts and data. I would wish
to add, however, that the notes and minutiae they took from
me referred only to events and incidents covering six months
of the War. Twice before my capture, various diaries I had
compiled fell into British hands; and on a third occasion,
when our camp at Dalmanutha was burned out by a
"grass-fire," other notes were destroyed.

(3) I wrote this book while a prisoner-of-war, fettered, as
it were, by the strong chains with which a British "parole"
is circumscribed. I was, so to say, bound hand and foot, and
always made to feel sensibly the humiliating position to
which we, as prisoners-of-war on this island, were reduced.
Our unhappy lot was rendered unnecessarily unpleasant by the
insulting treatment offered us by Colonel Price, who
appeared to me an excellent prototype of Napoleon's
custodian, Sir Hudson Lowe. One has only to read Lord
Rosebery's work, "The Last Phase of Napoleon," to realise
the insults and indignities Sir Hudson Lowe heaped upon a
gallant enemy.

We Boers experienced similar treatment from our custodian, Colonel
Price, who appeared to be possessed with the very demon of distrust
and who conjured up about us the same fantastic and mythical plans of
escape as Sir Hudson Lowe attributed to Napoleon. It is to his absurd
suspicions about our safe custody that I trace the bitterly offensive
regulations enforced on us.

While engaged upon this work, Colonel Price could have pounced down
upon me at any moment, and, having discovered the manuscript, would
certainly have promptly pronounced the writing of it in conflict with
the terms of my "parole."

I have striven as far as possible to refrain from criticism, except
when compelled to do so, and to give a coherent story, so that the
reader may easily follow the episodes I have sketched. I have also
endeavoured to be impartial, or, at least, so impartial as an erring
human being can be who has just quitted the bloody battlefields of a
bitter struggle.

But the sword is still wet, and the wound is not yet healed.

I would assure my readers that it has not been without hesitation that
I launch this work upon the world. There have been many amateur and
professional writers who have preceded me in overloading the reading
public with what purport to be "true histories" of the War. But having
been approached by friends to