In this, the third edition of my history of South Africa before the conquest of the Cape Colony by Great Britain in September 1795, I have added so largely to the information previously given concerning the Bushmen, or the aborigines of the country, the Hottentots, and particularly the Bantu immigrants, that I think it right to alter the old title by inserting the words “and Ethnography” in it.

Each volume, as before, covers a distinct period, and may therefore be regarded to some extent as a complete work of itself. Thus, the one in the reader's hands deals with the Portuguese in South Africa before the close of the seventeenth century, volume ii is devoted to an account of the Dutch colony in its early days, and volume iii brings the whole down to the fall of the Netherlands East India Company and the substitution of the British for the Dutch flag on the castle of Good Hope.

The history of South Africa after the British conquest forms a separate work, and consists of five volumes, including one just sent to the press.

Before I entered the civil service of the Cape Colony in 1877 I had been engaged for many years in studying the traditions, habits, and power of thought of the Bantu tribes of the south-eastern coast, and the knowledge gained thereby led, on the outbreak of the ninth war with the Xosas, to my being requested by Governor Sir Bartle Frere to fill a post then considered to be one of considerable difficulty.