| Note: | Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive. See https://archive.org/details/thoughtsonsoutha00schruoft |
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:
A list of corrections can be found at the endof the document.
OTHER BOOKS BY
OLIVE SCHREINER
STORIES, DREAMS AND ALLEGORIES
DREAMS
DREAM LIFE AND REAL LIFE
TROOPER PETER HALKET
WOMAN AND LABOUR
T. Fisher Unwin Ltd London
THOUGHTS ON
SOUTH AFRICA
BY
OLIVE SCHREINER
T. FISHER UNWIN LTD
LONDON: ADELPHI TERRACE
First published in 1923
(All rights reserved)
To
MY HUSBAND
THESE STRAY THOUGHTS ON THE LAND WE BOTH LOVE
ARE INSCRIBED BY HIS WIFE
OLIVE CRONWRIGHT SCHREINER
Hanover,
Cape Colony,
October 11, 1901.
"Stray thoughts on South Africa, by a ReturnedSouth African" (as they were originally entitled)were left by my late wife almost exactly as theynow appear.
She went to England for the first time early in 1881and returned to South Africa towards the end of 1889.Cape Town not suiting her asthmatic chest, it was notlong after her return that she made Matjesfontein herhome. Matjesfontein is a railway-station on the mainline, 195 miles from Cape Town and 2,955 feet abovethe sea-level. The climate suited her on the whole, andCape Town,—where her family, friends and social interestswere,—was not too far away. Here she leased a cottagewhich Mr. Logan, the owner of the little village and thelarge hotel, called "Schreiner Cottage."
It was here apparently that most of the "StrayThought" articles were written (as well as "Our WasteLand in Mashonaland," which is included in this volume).This would be from 1890 to somewhere towards the endof 1892; for she again went to England in 1893, returningthe same year.
The first article (Chapter I), dealing chiefly with thenatural features of South Africa, was published in theCape Times, Cape Town, as a "(Revised Edition)" on the18th August, 1891, with the footnote "(To be continuedin The Fortnightly Review)," and the last (Chapter VI) in1900. The first five chapters appeared, as far as myknowledge goes, some of them in The Fortnightly Review,others in Cosmopolis, and the sixth chapter in The Cosmopolitan.[8]The last chapter on "The Englishman," whichmany will regard as the most remarkable part of thisvolume, has not been published before, and was apparentlynever revised; it was written so hurriedly that I had totype it myself, and only with great difficulty; themanuscript starts abruptly on a page numbered 3. A proposedchapter on the Native Races was never written."The Domes