Cinderella in the South: Twenty-Five South African Tales

E-text prepared by Charles Klingman
New York Agents Longmans, Green & Co. Fourth Avenue and 30th Street
South African Tales
Author of 'Faerylands Forlorn,' 'Lyra Evangelistica,' Etc.
Oxford B. H. Blackwell, Broad Street MCMXVIII
To C. H. CRIPPS
Grace me these veld spoils rude with name of thine! Mine's been the luck not thine these long years now To tread the veld. What other use had'st thou, Hunter and Horseman, made of chances mine! Nor horns nor heads have I to give to thee, Yet spoils of sorts veld spoils I bring with me.
Eukeldoorn, Mashonaland.
October 11th, 1917.
Some fifteen years now I have been her guest, For all this land's hers, tho' she does not reign. She's but a ward, at what late age she'll gain Her freedom and her kingdom, it were best To risk no surmise rash. E'en now she's drest Sometimes in skins. Give her ground-nuts and grain, Cattle and thatch'd hut, then she'll not complain, She's happier-hearted than her Sisters blest.
Her Sisters blest! Of them what shall I say? I like them better when they keep away, And toil in their own lands, not loll in hers. They use her ill. She's not so old as they. She drudges for them. But her youth confers A charm on her they've lost these many years.
What's the good of him?' said the bar-tender to me. 'If he could tell us how the Ruins came he might be worth a forty-pound cheque every month, or at least a twenty one. But he can't.'