SIX MONTHS AT THE CAPE

Or letters to Periwinkle from South Africa

With illustrations by S.E. Waller from sketches by the author

First edition: 256 pages, frontispiece, 11 plates, green pictorial cloth with gilt vignette on the upper cover, titled gilt on the spine which is starting to fray at the top and the bottom, uncut edges, a good copy.

Mendelssohn (Sidney) South African Bibliography, volume I, page 76: Mr. Ballantyne was invited (in the year 1876) to pay a visit to a farm in the Karroo, and he evidently made a study of the habits of the ostrich farmers at this period. He seems to have enjoyed the country life, the shooting, and the open air of the veld, and he soon became familiar with South African agriculture.He visited Port Elizabeth, then a flourishing seaport with a population of 15,000, and here he saw a quantity of diamonds which had been sent from Kimberley. He was much impressed with the Cape Town Library, which he describes as " one of the noted libraries of the world."