book. The armed native guards standing against the uncurtained windows, it
was impossible to open the shutters, and the room was therefore always so
dark that even the physical act of writing was difficult.

A year and a half after, when the war was over and peace had been
proclaimed for above four months, I with difficulty obtained a permit to
visit the Transvaal. I found among the burnt fragments the leathern back
of my book intact, the front half of the leaves burnt away; the back half
of the leaves next to the cover still all there, but so browned and
scorched with the flames that they broke as you touched them; and there was
nothing left but to destroy it. I even then felt a hope that at some
future time I might yet rewrite the entire book. But life is short; and I
have found that not only shall I never rewrite the book, but I shall not
have the health even to fill out and harmonise this little remembrance from
it.

It is therefore with considerable pain that I give out this fragment. I am
only comforted by the thought that perhaps, all sincere and earnest search
after truth, even where it fails to reach it, yet, often comes so near to
it, that other minds more happily situated may be led, by pointing out its
very limitations and errors, to obtain a larger view.

I have dared to give this long and very uninteresting explanation, not at
all because I have wished by giving the conditions under which this little
book was written, to make excuse for any repetitions or lack of literary
perfection, for these things matter very little; but, because (and this
matters very much) it might lead to misconception on the subject-matter
itself if its genesis were not exactly understood.

Not only is this book not a general view of the whole vast body of