It was in April of last year, 1877, that I first formed a plan of paying an immediate visit to South Africa.

The idea that I would one day do so had long loomed in the distance before me.

Except the South African group I had seen all our great groups of Colonies, among which in my own mind I always include the United States, for to my thinking, our Colonies are the lands in which our cousins, the descendants of our forefathers, are living and still speaking our language.

I had become more or less acquainted I may say with all these offshoots from Great Britain, and had written books about them all.