Twenty-Five Years in a Waggon in South Africa, by Andrew A. Anderson. ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ TWENTY-FIVE YEARS IN A WAGGON IN SOUTH AFRICA, BY ANDREW A. ANDERSON. 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.