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Whatever value attaches to this little book is of this kind only. It is a personal document.

Had I the health to carry out my plans and to write somewhat in detail of what I think and feel with regard to our English folk in Africa, and above all of our Natives and their problems and difficulties, the little book might have had a certain rotundity; now it is a broken segment only. Nor should I publish it now were it not at the request of many friends; for I am unable adequately to revise even this segment.

There is also one insignificant matter I should like to notice. It has been said I love the African Boer. That is true. But it has been given as a reason for my doing so that I share his blood, and that is not true. One could not belong to a more virile folk, but I have no drop of Dutch blood.

My father was a South German, born in Würtemberg, who studied at Basel, and when only twenty-one years old came to London, where he married my mother, of purely English blood; and together with her came to Africa as a missionary about the year 1836.[1] My training was exclusively and strongly English. I did not begin learning any other language till I was eight and have never gained the complete mastery of any other. It is my mother speech and England is my mother land.