Before proceeding further, and in the light of some of the personal adventures which follow, a very brief sketch of my life abroad may be of some interest to the reader, and lend a certain cohesion to my stories as far as the question of time is concerned. I left the Old Country for Cape Town, in the early part of 1896, with the object of carving out a career for myself. I had no precise knowledge of what that career was to be, I Simply experienced an urgent desire to wander — a desire probably inherited from my father, who spent his early manhood gold digging in New Zealand and Australia.