At any rate, as I go about those parts of our land where our fathers had early opportunity of expressing themselves, those parts which remain least troubled by foreign ideas, I never fail to be impressed by the unerring instinct with which the houses turn their backs to the most desirable view. Being given their choice of a happy valley or a dusty road, they invariably prefer the latter. Set down on a spot where it is impossible, to avoid some agreeable outlook, they block out as much of it as possible by an enormous barn.

Now, a Turk is regarded by the inhabitants of those houses as a bloody and heathenish man, unsusceptible to any of the softer feelings that visit their own breasts. Yet that heathenish and bloody man has an unerring instinct of another kind. He has, uninstructed by any Village Improvement Society, a natural genius for placing his house, and, cut off in a town from wide prospects, the view of trees, the sight and sound of water, it would be inconceivable to him to make his back-yard such an abomination of desolation as may be seen from the rear windows of any American city.

The sense of beauty is a sprite of strange whims, visiting those who know her not, abandoning those who passionately sue her, never dwelling long in one time or people, and always discovering herself in new forms. If she has yet done no more than visit our shores furtively, and at rare intervals, that is no reason for giving up hope that she may some day reign in our midst. Shall there never be a Renaissance or Golden Age again?

In this small question of gardens, however, there is another element, another national idiosyncrasy, related to the rocking-chairs noted above. A larger

piazza the rocking-chair rocks; a house whose front door is courteously made of glass in order to deprive the public of as little as possible of what goes forward within, and whose interior partitions have almost totally disappeared. All is the integration of Spencer; there is scarcely any differentiation here between one room and another. In so far as consciousness may be concerned in these things I have no doubt that they are ordered for the common good, and on some vague protestant principle of a life to come as of large entertainments that seldom take place. Yet I seem to connect them with our somewhat noted American partiality for hotels for change, travel, and publicity also, as opposed to rootedness and the individual life.

Here I think must lie the seed of that unfriendliness toward gardens which I not seldom encounter. It is the more curious that any such unfriendliness should exist, since individualism is supposed to hold freer sway among us than among any other people of the earth. Yet, with all that individualism and vitality, there is lacking a certain sense of life, a sense of the life of the moment, which our bloody and heathenish friend the Turk possesses along with his sense of beauty. Is it that, like the younger sons we are of all the younger sons of the world, we must still forage and sow wild oats, the resources of the inner life being a secret of age?

Separation, after all, is as native and as needful to us as society. Every man bears within him a solitary world which no one else may enter. Nor is this merely a matter of the sentimental. There is something aloof within us that will not be divided or communicated. Our rarest, like our bitterest, moments are for ourselves alone. And only by being most himself

can a man be most for his kind. It is entirely possible to pay too much for the common good. Dangerous doctrine though this be, double-edged for good or ill, it is proven by great poets; by the great initiators of any breed.

Whence it is that a garden wall is no piece of that exclusiveness at which we like to throw our word 'un-American.' If private life be less American than life of the street, the sooner we naturalize it the better.

I

At the outset of my third chapter I wish to emphasize the fact that I am doing my best to write, not simply the ups and downs of a somewhat adventurous career, but the plain history of a passion.

In the preceding sections of my story I have given a rough yet definite description of the soil in which this passion was planted, and of its manifestations and behavior when first it became conscious of its surroundings in the Highlands of Scotland. I have described the contact of my individualistic spirit with men and events when I was about to leave home; later, on board ship; and finally during a sojourn of two years in South America. Before concluding the story of my experiences in South America, however, a final incident remains to be noticed.

Applying its lessons to my own progress, the story relates specifically to the character and influence of women. My experience in such matters has been somewhat unusual. For one thing, I

can just remember my mother on her death-bed. As a moral handicap the significance of this fact is immeasurable. Then again, there were no girls in our family, no sisters for companions or playmates.

Let the reasons be what they may, as I grew up, I consistently avoided female society. But this instinctive disinclination for the society of girls and women was accompanied by the most spiritual ideas in regard to their personalities and influence. My youthful and well-remembered conclusions on the subject are plain as plain can be. As a growing boy it never occurred to me that any girl or woman of my acquaintance could possibly be less than perfect in the workings of her heart, in the details of her daily occupation, or in matters that related to her mission as a sex. My attitude at the time may be summed up in two mottoes: 'I worship,' and, 'I serve.'

But there comes to every mortal a time when youthful dreams must submit themselves to all sorts of practical and spiritual tests. In my case, the

first clash was perhaps the most memorable event in which my personality has ever been called upon to take part. On the occasion to which I refer, I just happened to get close enough to the heart of a woman to enable me to understand a little of its fundamental character. It is one of those unforgettable links that still connect this most absorbing of life problems with my boyish dreams. It was shortly after my arrival in Bahia from Santos. She was a married woman. This fact, to me at the time, had not the slightest significance. I made her acquaintance on board ship, on the way over from Europe. She was then the young bride of one of my fellow clerks. Unfortunately he was the flimsiest kind of a fellow, and six months of life in Bahia were sufficient to carry him well along on the highway to perdition. On my arrival in Bahia I knew nothing about this state of affairs. However, when I heard that the family were in trouble I determined to call, and after a while I found them in poorly furnished quarters in what was then known as the upper city.

At the time of my first visit the husband was in jail and the young wife was taking care of her baby girl and trying to keep body and soul together with the assistance of a boarder or two. Within a few days I, too, as a boarder, was admitted into the family circle.

Readers perhaps will imagine that I am about to give a simple variation of an old story. Be this as it may, the significance of the experience to me personally was incalculable.

With my advent the young wife seemed to acquire a fresh supply of courage. We soon became attached to each other in a quiet sociable way, which easily led to the exchanging of confidences. Apart from her expressed gratitude, I knew absolutely nothing about her affections, except as they

shone in her face and were manifested in her motherly devotion. And yet it is true that as the days went by the situation developed most delightfully in impossible directions, as it were, until the current of other affairs hurried it along to a climax.

Before leaving Santos I had written home to make inquiries in regard to the situation and prospects in South Africa, and very soon I received word that arrangements had been made which would enable me to join a party of young fellows who intended to leave England on a certain date. Finally the time came for me to pack up and take leave.

So one morning I prepared to walk out of my boarding-house for the last time. To me the occasion, in minutest detail, is unforgettable. In thinking it all over from a distance, one recognizes with a clearer understanding than at the time the significance of such events in the life-journey of the individual. Every once in a while in their lives people focus in this way and take stock of spiritual progress. The picture in my mind of the final scene and leavetaking is something like this: —

A ladder of houses on a cliff-like street. The city sparkling in the first glow of the early morning sun. The harbor beneath, and in the distance, dotted with ships. Inside a home, a flower-decked parlor, a child in a high chair pounding lustily on the table with little fists. The young mother sorrowtossed, yet struggling to speak cheerfully. The face pale as pale can be, yet gentle and firm beyond description. The hand extended, and the words 'good-bye' at the point of utterance. Then suddenly, in the twinkling of an eye, the features relax, tears stream and the little body collapses. Just enough strength was left to enable her to rush from the room.

As for me, I stood there like a fool,

bereft of motion, almost of thought. Quickly, however, I came to my senses. A situation hitherto undreamed of, yet actually rehearsed for two or three months in simplest everyday intercourse, dawned upon me. From her side and mine, all at once, I understood. I realized that to prolong my stay, or to call her back, would be sacrilege. Nevertheless, even to-day, I cannot easily account to myself for what followed. I turned to leave the house, and then the unutterable dilemma in my heart took refuge in action. I opened my purse and counted out upon the table, in sovereigns, the half of its contents. And that was the end of it all.

II

The scene now changes to South Africa. But before I begin the narrative of my travels and experience in that country, a word or two should be said regarding my aim and intentions in steering my course in such a strange direction.

To begin with, of course there was the roving, adventurous spirit tucked away in my heredity, added to the disgust which I had acquired for my life and surroundings in South America. Then again, there was the ever-present necessity of earning a living somehow and somewhere; and on top of all these considerations there came an enthusiastic invitation from a brother who was already in Africa, and who, at the time he wrote, was doing remarkably well at the Pilgrim's Rest Gold-Fields. Just what I was going to do when I got there was to be left altogether to cir

cumstances.

In the second place, a preliminary word or two of explanation is due in regard to the period at which I appeared on the African scene; and a very brief sketch or reminder of a few of the historical events which signalized this

period and with which, here and there, I was in close touch, will certainly not be out of place.

In those days there were no railroads either in Natal or the Transvaal, and the ox-wagon was the most important single feature of African life. The Transvaal Republic, when first I entered the territory in the year 1877, was in a state of commercial and political anarchy, principally from a lack of funds necessary to enable the farmers to continue their campaign against the Kaffirs. President Burgers and his executive were in despair and the Republic was in a state of hopeless bankruptcy when, on April 12, 1877, at Pretoria, Sir Theophilus Shepstone, armed with the necessary authority from the British government, annexed the country as British territory.

The return of more prosperous conditions, however, aroused the Boers to renewed consciousness of their political subjection, and very soon, under the stupid and autocratic handling of the situation by British administrators, the old sores were reopened, and the war-spirit, nursed by the cautious and astute policy of Paul Kruger, who was at the head of the new movement, spread from farm to farm until it was fearlessly supported by nine tenths of the population.

At intervals following the annexation in 1877, came the Zulu war, which included the disaster at Isandlwana, the death of Prince Napoleon, the victory of Ulundi, and the capture of Cetewayo. Then, later, the campaign against the Kaffir chief Sekukuni in the north of the Transvaal was undertaken, and this again was followed in 1880 by the outbreak of the first Boer war of Independence, with the battle of Majuba Hill, and the recession of the Transvaal to the Boers by the Gladstone government, in 1881.

It was at the beginning of this string

of historical events that I made my way into the Transvaal, and in the midst of these scenes I lived and moved about for over three years among the Boers and the Kaffirs.

While the events I have mentioned had but little direct connection with me and my fortunes, they form a sort of historical framework inside of which I moved up and down and formed personal opinions in regard to policies and peoples. In order to emphasize my personal relationship to these affairs and to these peoples, I think the best way will be to give a series of detached pictures of my African life and experience and to comment upon them by the way.

III

On the journey from South America to the Transvaal I halted for a day or two in Cape Town. Then I moved northward and spent a few weeks in the colony of Natal, where I happened to meet two men who took more than a passing interest in me and my problems. The first was Rider Haggard. At that time he was secretary to the governor. Haggard, like myself, was then in the making stage, and already his conversation was bristling with the 'He,' 'She,' and 'Jess' of his novels. With Haggard's assistance I received an introduction to one of the most notable men of the period in that or any other country, Bishop Colenso. He was one of those persecuted forerunners of religious liberty. At the same time he was universally recognized as the great peace-loving arbitrator between the Kaffirs, the Boers, and the British. Three or four times I met him at his home, amid dream-like surroundings, dowers and hedgerows and gorgeous vegetation, a grand old man with a retnue of stately ring-crowned Zulus for servitors and errand boys. He seemed to be devoting his declining years to

the material and spiritual interests of a little village of dark-skinned mission children. For the first time in my life, I met a man who listened to my story, gave me much practical and spiritual advice, and sent me on my way with renewed courage.

At this point in my narrative I may as well say that, in my mind, at the time, my personal mission in Africa was clearly understood. At the first encounter, in South America especially, Society and I had made the poorest kind of connection. The rough-andtumble childhood, the religion of John Knox, the discipline of the 'taws,' and the sterling influence of vigorous and healthy environment in youth, had received a palpable setback. Hitherto Society had been confining me in many ways; I was anxious to grow in a physical direction especially, and for that reason the prospect of a few years in Africa appealed to me. At the same time, both intellectually and religiously, I was holding my own. While I still remained steadfast to religious fundamentals, the meaning of religion in my mind, as well as its centre of gravity, was changing.

Of course, apart from this philosophy of life, there was, at all times, the problem of my material interests. Never in my life, however, have I had any schemes for the accumulation of money, and least of all while I was in Africa. I was possessed with a craving for knowledge, excitement, and personal expression. My mind was twenty years ahead of my experience. The problem for me would have been the same in any country it was simply to find myself. In Africa as in South America I continued to follow my individualistic programme, and it must not be forgotten that my conclusions in regard to people and conditions were derived not from philosophy or reading, but from a discussion of live