Excerpt from With a Show Through Southern Africa, Vol. 1 of 2: And Personal Reminiscences of the Transvaal War
Africa semper aliquid novi offert was written as long ago as the days of ancient Rome; and that Africa always offers to our notice something new may fairly be echoed by the European of to-day. It is seldom that the pursuit of amusing the public brings its exponents into intimate relations with strife and warfare, nor is it usually attended by experiences of eccentric travel and singular incident; and these facts have alone induced me to place the following pages before the public. I may add that, certainly amongst some circles of society in Great Britain, the most impenetrable haziness appears to exist respecting South Africa - geographically, historically, and socially; another inducement to me to add the very mild rays of light these pages are capable of shedding upon the local atmosphere of fog with which many stay-at-home people seem to be occasionally surrounded. I have per sonally met, since my return, with individuals who were perfectly astonished I had never seen or heard of some particular relation or friend who, they informed me, was at the Cape against whom I must perforce have jostled in the street, according to their ideas: and when further conversation disclosed the fact that its subject resided in some out-of-the-way village in the Orange Free State or on the borders of the Transvaal, great was their astonishment to be told that his or herresidence was hundreds of miles away from everywhere. This general want of knowledge respecting South Africa is all the more remarkable, as having been the theatre of so many wars, and latterly of two remarkable ones, if it be true that war is the great modern teacher of geography it might fairly have been expected that its characteristics would be more fully and generally understood at home, I have met with many instances to prove the exception to this particular rule.
My personal reminiscences of the late War in the Transvaal bear upon a particular position from which, although the capital and seat of Government, scarcely any news filtered through to the outer world during its investment, owing to the excellence of the Boer scouting, and the charmed circle of their waacht' (watch). When at last - the war over - communications did Open, public attention was engrossed by events of the settlement, and little seemed to become known of one of the most singular of beleaguerments, replete with incident and remarkable in its peculiarities which facts must be my excuse for devoting so much space to its description.
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