My father
could no longer bear to live in England after the loss that had fallen
on him, and made up his mind to emigrate to South Africa. We must have
been poor at the time--indeed, I believe that a large portion of
our income went from my father on my mother's death. At any rate we
travelled with the steerage passengers, and the intense discomfort of
the journey with the rough ways of our fellow emigrants still remain
upon my mind. At last it came to an end, and we reached Africa, which I
was not to leave again for many, many years.
In those days civilization had not made any great progress in Southern
Africa. My father went up the country and became a missionary among the
Kaffirs, near to where the town of Cradock now stands, and here I grew
to manhood. There were a few Boer farmers in the neighbourhood, and
gradually a little settlement of whites gathered round our mission
station--a drunken Scotch blacksmith and wheelwright was about the most
interesting character, who, when he was sober, could quote the Scottish
poet Burns and the Ingoldsby Legends, then recently published, literally
by the page.
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