as soon as possible after my death." My father died on the 6th of
December, 1882.

It will be seen, therefore, that my duty has been merely to pass
the book through the press conformably to the above instructions.
I have placed headings to the right-hand pages throughout the book,
and I do not conceive that I was precluded from so doing. Additions
of any other sort there have been none; the few footnotes are my
father's own additions or corrections. And I have made no alterations.
I have suppressed some few passages, but not more than would amount
to two printed pages has been omitted. My father has not given any
of his own letters, nor was it his wish that any should be published.

So much I would say by way of preface. And I think I may also give
in a few words the main incidents in my father's life after he
completed his autobiography.

He has said that he had given up hunting; but he still kept two
horses for such riding as may be had in or about the immediate
neighborhood of London. He continued to ride to the end of his
life: he liked the exercise, and I think it would have distressed
him not to have had a horse in his stable. But he never spoke
willingly on hunting matters. He had at last resolved to give up
his favourite amusement, and that as far as he was concerned there
should be an end of it. In the spring of 1877 he went to South
Africa, and returned early in the following year with a book on
the colony already written. In the summer of 1878, he was one of
a party of ladies and gentlemen who made an expedition to Iceland
in the "Mastiff," one of Mr. John Burns' steam-ships. The journey
lasted altogether sixteen days, and during that time Mr. and Mrs.