tion>Andrew A. Anderson
Twenty-Five Years in a Waggon in South Africa: Sport and Travel in South Africa
Published by Good Press, 2021
EAN 4064066186937
Table of Contents
"Sport and Travel in South Africa"
"Sport and Travel in South Africa"
Preface.
My object in writing this work is to add another page to the physical geography of Africa. That region selected for my explorations has hitherto been a terra incognita in all maps relating to this dark continent. The field of my labour has been South Central Africa, north of the Cape Colony, up to the Congo region, comprising an area of 2,000,000 square miles; in length, from north to south, 1100 miles, and from east to west—that is, from the Indian to the South Atlantic Ocean—1800 miles, which includes the whole of Africa from sea to sea, and from the 15 degree to the 30 degree south latitude.
It has been my desire to make physical geography a pleasant study to the young, and in gaining this knowledge of a country, they may at the same time become acquainted with its resources and capabilities for future enterprise in commercial pursuits to all who may embark in such undertakings, and this cannot be accomplished without having a full knowledge of the people who inhabit the land; also its geological features, natural history, botany, and other subjects of interest in connection with it. Such information is imperative to a commercial nation like Great Britain, particularly when we look round and see such immense competition in trade with our continental neighbours, necessitates corresponding energy at home if we wish to hold our own in the great markets of the world, and this cannot be done unless the resources and capabilities of every quarter of the globe is thoroughly known. And for this purpose my endeavours have been directed, so far as South Central Africa is concerned, and to fill up the blank in the physical geography of that portion of the African Continent.
When I undertook this work in 1863 no information could be obtained as to what was beyond our colonial frontier, except that a great part was desert land uninhabited, except in parts by wild Bushmen, and the remaining region beyond by lawless tribes of natives. I at once saw there was a great field open for explorations, and I undertook that duty in that year, being strongly impressed with the importance, that eventually it would become (connected as it is with our South African possessions) of the highest value, if in our hands, for the preservation of our African colonies, the extension of our trade, and a great field for civilising and Christianising the native races, as also for emigration, which would lead to most important results, in opening up the great high road to Central Africa, thereby securing to the Cape Colony and Natal a vast increase of trade and an immense opening for the disposal of British merchandise that would otherwise flow into other channels through foreign ports; and, at the same time, knowing how closely connected native territories were to our border,
