to sell a house to a non-householder; imagine such a thing and its effects,
then you have some approach to an accurate picture of the operation
of the South African Natives' Land Act of 1913. In conclusion,
let me ask the reader's support in our campaign for the repeal of such a law,
and in making this request I pray that none of my readers may live
to find themselves in a position so intolerable.

When the narrative of this book up to Chapter XVIII was completed,
it was felt that an account of life in South Africa,
without a reference to the war or the rebellion would be
but a story half told, and so Chapters XIX-XXV were added.
It will be observed that Chapters XX-XXIV, unlike the rest of the book,
are not the result of the writer's own observations.
The writer is indebted for much of the information in these five chapters
to the Native Press and some Dutch newspapers which his devoted wife
posted to him with every mail. These papers have been
a source of useful information. Of the Dutch newspapers
special thanks are due to `Het Westen' of Potchefstroom,
which has since March 1915 changed its name to `Het Volksblad'.
Most of the Dutch journals, especially in the northern Provinces, take up
the views of English-speaking Dutch townsmen (solicitors and Bank clerks),
and publish them as the opinion of the South African Dutch.
`Het Westen' (now `Het Volksblad'), on the other hand,
interprets the Dutch view, sound, bad or indifferent, exactly as we ourselves
have heard it expressed by Dutchmen at their own farms.

Translations of the Tipperary Chorus into some of the languages
which are spoken by the white and black inhabitants of South Africa
have been used here and there as mottoes; and as this book is a plea
in the main for help against the "South African war of extermination",