FIFTY YEARS IN SOUTH AFRICA:

273 pages, frontispiece, 3 black and white plates, blue textured cloth, faded on the spine, a good copy.

Mendelssoh (Sidney) South African Bibliography volume 2 page 101 -102: In a Preface which is dated from Robertson, Cape Colony, the author states that he left England for the Cape in 1844, and he gives a short sketch of the colony at this period, together with some information concerning the " little Boer Republics in an embryonic and tentative condition, in the territories now known as the Orange Free State and Transvaal. ..." Mr. Nicholson bought a farm near the Sneeberg range of mountains and stocked it, but after two years sold it at a profit and " cleared out for the interior," and he affords an account of his hunting expeditions, in the course of which he came in contact with Gordon-Cumming (whom he constantly alludes to as Cummings), Oswell, and David Livingstone.

There is a very abtisive chapter respecting the Diamond Fields, which contains a fierce attack on David Amot, who is stated to have been " an illegitimate son of a former Chief Justice in the Cape, called Menzies, by a sable dam." The author accuses Amot of converting Waterboer " from a decent respectable man into a sodden, idiotic inebriate," and remarks that, although Gladstone and his " Little England Party " were " bitterly averse to colonial extension," they annexed Griqualand West as a kind of advertisement " to obtain an accession of popularity and votes." With regard to the Transvaal, he observes that it is simply absurd that " the most narrow- minded and ignorant people on the face of the earth should be allowed to occupy a position ... of control over interests in the country worth at least 95 per cent, of those of the Boers."

Czech (Kenneth) An Annotated Bibliography of African Big Game Hunting Books 1785-1999 page 209: Nicholson landed in South Africa in 1844 and proceeded to try his hand at farming. He spent time hunting with the Boers, though he decried their marksmanship in wild game country. The author hunted throughout the orange Free State and describes the game encountered. He was particularly enthusiastic aobut lions and devotes a chapter to them. Nicholson also hunted in the Great Thirst Land of the Kalahari Desert.