



Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England




Through South Africa, by Henry M. Stanley, MP, DCL.

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THROUGH SOUTH AFRICA, BY HENRY M. STANLEY, MP, DCL.



PREFACE.

This little volume consists of the letters I wrote from Bulawayo,
Johannesburg and Pretoria for the journal _South Africa_, which is
exclusively devoted to matters relating to the region whence it derives
its title.  Each letter contains the researches of a week.  As the
public had already a sufficiency of books dealing with the history,
geography, politics, raids and revolts, I confined myself to such
impressions as one, who since 1867 had been closely connected with
equatorial, northern and western Africa, might derive from a first view
of the interior of South Africa.  Being in no way associated with any
political or pecuniary concern relating to the country, it struck me
that my open-minded, disinterested and fresh impressions might be of
some interest to others, who like myself had only a general sympathy
with its civilisation and commercial development.  And as I had
necessarily to qualify myself for appearing in a journal which had for
years treated of South African subjects, it involved much personal
inquiry and careful consideration of facts communicated to roe, and an
impartial weighing of their merits.  To this motive, whatever may be the
value of what I have written, I am greatly indebted personally; for
henceforth I must carry with me for a long time a valuable kind of
knowledge concerning the colonies and states I traversed, which no
number of books could have given to me.

If, from my point of judgment, I differ in any way from other writers,
all I care to urge is, that I have had some experience of my own in
several new lands like the South African interior, and I have lived long
enough to have seen the effects of what was good and what was bad policy
in them.  I prefer peaceful relations between England and the Boers of
South Africa, if possible; I love what is just, fair, and best to and
for both Britons and Boers.  I naturally admire large-minded enterprise.
I pity narrow-mindedness, and dislike to see a people refusing to
advance, when all the world is so sympathetic and helpfully inclined
towards them.  These explanations, I think, will enable anyone to
understand the spirit of these letters.

A curious thing occurred in connection with my sudden departure for
South Africa.  In the latter part of September, 1897, I was debating
with my family, at a seaside hotel near Dieppe, as to the place we
should visit after the adjournment of Parliament in 1898.  After
discussing the merits of many suggestions, it was finally determined
that we should all try South Africa, because it was said to have such a
divine climate; the country was, moreover, so interesting politically,
and as it loomed so much in public interest it would be worth while to
obtain some personal knowledge of South Africans at home.  We had
scarcely arrived at this conclusion, when the postman brought to us a
telegram, which, to our intense surprise, was a request from the
Bulawayo Festivities Committee that I would go to Bulawayo to attend the
celebration of the arrival of the Great Peninsular Railway at the
Capital of Matabele Land.  We regarded it as a strange coincidence.

This opportunity to visit Bulawayo I considered rather premature, as
towards the end of autumn many engagements crowd upon one, but after
another animated family council it was resolved that I should accept the
invitation were it only to qualify myself as a pioneer for the ladies.

We left Southampton on the _Norman_ on the 9th October.  I found then
that there were five other members of the House of Commons on board--
Messrs. Saunderson, Llewellyn, Hayes Fisher, Peace, and Paullton, and
the Duke of Roxburghe representing the House of Lords.  Among the
passengers there were Boers from Pretoria and Cape Colony, British
Uitlanders from Johannesburg, English residents from the Cape and the
two Dutch Republics, Afrikander farmers and vine-growers, and
townspeople, some from the Cape District, others from the Eastern and
Western Provinces, and not a few from Kimberley and Natal, besides a few
ex-Raiders and Reformers.  As