cles. Shortly afterwards, there was a
great and stormy meeting of Boers at Pretoria. As matters began to look
serious, somebody ventured among them to ascertain the exciting cause,
and returned with the pleasing intelligence that they were all talking
of what the Englishman had written about the physical proportions of
their womenkind and domestic habits, and threatening to take up arms to
avenge it. Of my feelings on learning this news I will not discourse,
but they were uncomfortable, to say the least of it. Happily, in the
end, the gathering broke up without bloodshed, but when the late Sir
Bartle Frere came to Pretoria, some months afterwards, he administered
to me a sound and well-deserved lecture on my indiscretion. I excused
myself by saying that I had set down nothing which was not strictly
true, and he replied to the effect that therein lay my fault. I quite
agree with him; indeed, there is little doubt but that these bald
statements of fact as to the stoutness of the Transvaal 'fraus,' and the
lack of cleanliness in their homes, went near to precipitating a result
that, as it chanced, was postponed for several years. Well, it is all
done with now, and I take this opportunity of apologising to such of the
ladies in question as may still be in the land of life.

[Illustration: MR. RIDER HAGGARD AND HIS DAUGHTERS]

This unfortunate experience cooled my literary ardour, yet, as it
chanced, when some five years later I again took up my pen, it was in
connection with African affairs. These pages are no place for politics,
but I must allude to them in explanation. It will be remembered that the
Transvaal was annexed by Great Britain in 1877. In 1881 the Boers rose
in rebellion and administered several thrashings to our troops, whereon
the Government of this country came suddenly to the conclusion that a
wrong had been done to the victors, and, subject to some paper
restrictions, gave them back their independence. As it chanced, at the
time I was living on some African property belonging to me in the centre
of the operations, and so disgusted was I, in common with thousands of
others, at the turn which matters had taken, that I shook the dust of
South Africa off my feet and returned to England. Now, the first impulse
of an aggrieved Englishman is to write to the _Times_, and if I remember
right I took this course, but, my letter not being inserted, I enlarged
upon the idea and composed a book called 'Cetewayo and his