MATABELE LAND AND THE VICTORIA FALLS [Illustration: Frank Oates.] MATABELE LAND AND THE VICTORIA FALLS A NATURALIST’S WANDERINGS IN THE INTERIOR OF SOUTH AFRICA _FROM THE LETTERS & JOURNALS OF THE LATE_ FRANK OATES, F.R.G.S. EDITED BY C. G. OATES, B.A. [Illustration] LONDON C. KEGAN PAUL & CO., 1 PATERNOSTER SQUARE 1881 _Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, _Edinburgh_. PREFACE. In offering to the public the following pages, I feel, as editor, that I owe a few words of apology and explanation to the reader by way of preface--apology for the imperfections of the volume; explanation how such imperfections have arisen. The traveller whose journey to the Zambesi is here recounted died of fever a few days after he had left that river on his way homewards, and the book has been compiled from his note-books, and letters home. The latter were written with no view of publication; the former were intended only for the writer’s own subsequent use and as suggestive guides to memory. It is always a question in such a case how far the surviving friends of the deceased writer or traveller do well in publishing the unfinished labour of his pen. What his own wish would have been cannot be known, or even guessed at, unless specially expressed; and the reflection forcibly presents itself to the mind that perhaps a certain injustice may be done to the memory of the dead by publishing, in a form which may fairly challenge the criticism of the general reader, a few hasty jottings by the wayside, written under circumstances the least favourable to literary composition, and a limited number of letters home, meant merely for the perusal of the writer’s nearest and most indulgent friends. On the other hand, however, it must be borne in mind that, much as must inevitably be lost in editing pages such as these for want of the inspiring touch which the writer himself could alone have finally given them, there will probably be a directness and freshness of the expressions which a traveller makes use of on the spot, hampered as he then is by no oppressive consciousness that he is addressing that imaginary “public”--consisting after all but of a number of individuals like himself, all with the same human heart and interests,--which might be wanting in his more matured work.