ptive parts. I have selected for discussion those topics which
are of most permanent importance and as to which the reader is most
likely to be curious. Among them are the condition of the natives, and
their relations to the white people; the aspects of social and political
life; the situation of affairs in the Transvaal in 1895, and the causes
which brought about the Reform rising and the expedition of Dr. Jameson;
and finally, the economic prospects of the country, and the political
future of its colonies and republics.

In these concluding chapters, as well as in the historical sketch, my
aim has been to set forth and explain facts rather than to pass
judgments upon the character and conduct of individuals. Whoever desires
to help others to a fair view of current events must try not only to be
impartial, but also to avoid expressing opinions when the grounds for
those opinions cannot be fully stated; and where controversy is raging
round the events to be described, no judgment passed on individual
actors could fail to be deemed partial by one set of partizans or by the
other. Feeling sure that the present problems will take some time to
solve, I have sought to write what those who desire to understand the
country may find useful even after the next few years have passed. And,
so far from wishing to champion any view or to throw any fresh logs on
the fire of controversy that has been blazing for the last few years, I
am convinced that the thing now most needed in the interests of South
Africa is to let controversies die out, to endeavour to forget the
causes of irritation, and to look at the actual facts of the case in a
purely practical spirit.

Altogether apart from its recent troubles, South Africa is an
interesting, and indeed fascinating subject of study. There are, of
course, some things which one cannot expect to find in it. There has not
yet been time to evolve institutions either novel or specially
instructive, nor to produce new types of character (save that of the
Transvaal Boer) or new forms of social life. There are no ancient
buildings, except a few prehistoric ruins; nor have any schools of
architecture or painting or literature been as yet developed. But
besides the aspects of nature, often weird and sometimes beautiful,
there are the savage races, whose usages and superstitions open a wide
field for research, and the phenomena of whose contact with the whites
raise some grave and gloomy problems. The