South Africa. By Anthony Trollope. 2 vols. (Chapman and Hall.)
—Mr. Trollope is, for what he attempts, one of the most observant and valuable of travellers. Ho is a traveller emphatically of the modern kind. The great discoverers belong to every age, but the impartial and intelligent observer, who gives us his estimate of the social and political condition of other countries, is a product of times like our own. And it is with delicate questions of this kind that Mr. Trollopo especially succeeds. The subjects which he discussed when ho wrote about America some years ago, those which he discusses in the volume before us, are, in one way or another, intimately connected with our- selves. The United States have boon a rock of offence to travellers without number, and South Africa, though more out of the way, affords plenty of burning questions. Mr. Trollope is tho least likely of all mon to "come to grief." It is impossible, of course, that ho can please all by his observations and inferences. His book would cer- tainly be worthless, if he did. But ho leaves us with the conviction that ho is thoroughly impartial, and that though ho does not claim infallibility, he is as little likely to be as wrong as any one that wo can imagine. It is quite impossible to follow Mr. Trollopo in his wander- ings over South Africa. If we did, wo should fool ourselves wholly unable to criticise him. In fact, the critic can do little more than re- cord his impression of the manner in which ho seems to observe and to infer. Mr. Trollopo's estimate of the action of the " Briton " as a colonist and a ruler is forcibly given in these words:—" It does seem to me that ho is, upon the whole, beneficent, though occasionally very unj net One of these instances of beneficent injustice is to be found in the recent annexation of the Transvaal Republic. Mr. Trollopo's method of dealing with this subject reminds one of Mr. Gladstone's favourite artifice in introducing a budget. He used to make us out utterly in- solvent, and then triumphantly displayed a surplus. So Mr. Trollope sees no justification for the high-handed act of Sir Thoophilus Shop- stone. And yet he tolls us that he found no one who disapproved of it except the ox-President, Mr. Burgers ; and Mr. Burgers himself ac- knowledged that it would benefit the natives, the English, and oven the Dutch. Mr. Trollopo has plenty to say about the Boors, of whom he entertains a favourable opinion ; about the Zulus, and in fact, about all the variety of men and things which that large term " South Africa" comprises ; he is always judicious, and very often entertaining ; any one who appreciates good-sense and bonhomie will find them in these volumes.
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