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"Stray thoughts on South Africa, by a Returned South African" (as they were originally entitled) were left by my late wife almost exactly as they now appear.

She went to England for the first time early in 1881 and returned to South Africa towards the end of 1889. Cape Town not suiting her asthmatic chest, it was not long after her return that she made Matjesfontein her home. Matjesfontein is a railway-station on the main line, 195 miles from Cape Town and 2,955 feet above the sea-level. The climate suited her on the whole, and Cape Town,—where her family, friends and social interests were,—was not too far away. Here she leased a cottage which Mr. Logan, the owner of the little village and the large hotel, called "Schreiner Cottage."

It was here apparently that most of the "Stray Thought" articles were written (as well as "Our Waste Land in Mashonaland," which is included in this volume). This would be from 1890 to somewhere towards the end of 1892; for she again went to England in 1893, returning the same year.

The first article (Chapter I), dealing chiefly with the natural features of South Africa, was published in the Cape Times, Cape Town, as a "(Revised Edition)" on the 18th August, 1891, with the footnote "(To be continued in The Fortnightly Review)," and the last (Chapter VI) in 1900. The first five chapters appeared, as far as my knowledge goes, some of them in The Fortnightly Review, others in Cosmopolis, and the sixth chapter in The Cosmopolitan. The last chapter on "The Englishman," which many will regard as the most remarkable part of this volume, has not been published before, and was apparently never revised; it was written so hurriedly that I had to type it myself, and only with great difficulty; the manuscript starts abruptly on a page numbered 3. A proposed chapter on the Native Races was never written. "The Domestic Life of the South African Boer" appeared in The Youth's Companion in November, 1899. It is not a part of "Stray Thoughts," but, from its nature, seems to find a fitting place in this book. "Our Waste Land in Mashonaland" appeared in the Cape Times, simply as "Communicated," on August 26th, 1891. The Dedication, the Introduction, and the other Notes have not hitherto been published.

All the articles were carefully revised by her, as also the above-mentioned unpublished matter, except Chapter VIII. It will be seen from the "Notes" that she was occupied with them at intervals, and, from the Prefatory Note, that she intended to publish them in 1896 soon after the Jameson Raid.

About this time, however, she began to write Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland, which absorbed her time and attention to the exclusion of the "Stray Thoughts." She and I went to England in 1897, when she published Peter Halket. Not long after our return we went to Johannesburg and lived there until some little time before the Boer War started. Subsequently, on account of bad health, her doctor ordered her to leave. The Boer War and the distressing state of things in South Africa resulting therefrom, coupled with her ill-health and then the European War and the almost complete breakdown of her health, account largely, no doubt, for the non-publication of these Thoughts on South Africa.

S. C. CRONWRIGHT-SCHREINER.

Krantz Plaats, 6 Camden Street,

Tamboers Kloof, Cape Town.

January 1923.