ls have
not become so familiar to him as to obscure the broad outlines.

Instead of narrating my journey, and weaving into the narrative
observations on the country and people, I have tried to arrange the
materials collected in a way better fitted to present to the reader in
their natural connection the facts he will desire to have. Those facts
would seem to be the following: (1) the physical character of the
country, and the aspects of its scenery; (2) the characteristics of the
native races that inhabit it; (3) the history of the natives and of the
European settlers, that is to say the chief events which have made the
people what they now are; (4) the present condition of the several
divisions of the country, and the aspects of life in it; (5) the
economic resources of the country, and the characteristic features of
its society and its politics.

These I have tried to set forth in the order above indicated. The first
seven chapters contain a very brief account of the physical structure
and climate, since these are the conditions which have chiefly
determined the economic progress of the country and the lines of
European migration, together with remarks on the wild animals, the
vegetation, and the scenery. Next follows a sketch of the three
aboriginal races, and an outline of the history of the whites since
their first arrival, four centuries ago. The earlier events are lightly
touched on, while those which have brought about the present political
situation are more fully related. In the third part of the book, asking
the reader to accompany me on the long journey from Cape Town to the
Zambesi Valley and back again, I have given in four chapters a
description of the far interior as one sees it passing from barbarism to
civilization--its scenery, the prospects of its material development,
the life which its new settlers lead. These regions, being the part of
the country most lately brought under European administration, seem to
deserve a fuller treatment than the older and better-known regions.
Three other chapters give a more summary account of Natal, of the
Transvaal gold-fields, of that model republic the Orange Free State, and
of Basutoland, a native state under British protection which possesses
many features of peculiar interest. In the fourth and last division of
the book several questions of a more general character are dealt with
which could not conveniently be brought into either the historical or
the descri