IN the following chapters I have attempted to give, to the English reader especially, a conspectus of many of the principal events in South African history, and, with this object, have arranged my subject matter under certain heads, each forming an independent study in itself, but preserving, as far as possible, a chronological sequence. I have deemed this plan preferable to that of dry historical narrative where, as in the record of the Kafir wars, the memory becomes surfeited with names, dates, and all the monotonous details of a frontier campaign, and so, where the annalist in the limited sense of the word may have been long, I have been short. My desire has been to show cause and effect, to trace the workings of a policy or the drift of a line of action. For instance, I have drawn attention to the fact that the Imperial Government have on many occasions, in fact, almost persistently, ignored and dis claimed a forward policy in South Africa.