The Cape and the Kaffirs: A Diary of Five Years' Residence in Kaffirland

My dear Colonel Somerset,
My work on Kaffirland, which I had the honour to dedicate to you in 1848, having gone through two editions, I should consider this abstract narrative incomplete without your name. Permit me, then, to inscribe this little book to you, in testimony of that admiration for your public services which all must feel who have benefited by them, as well as in remembrance of much kindness to
Your obliged and faithful friend,
Harriet Ward.
Dover, March , 1851.
Note. Since this was written Colonel Somerset has been awarded the local rank of Major-General by Sir Harry Smith.

Much of the following work has already appeared, and has been favourably received by the public under the title of “Five Years in Kaffirland.” Its price, however, having necessarily limited its circulation, I have been induced to remodel it, and I now bring it forward in its present shape, with some little alteration and abridgment, and with the addition of much that appeared to me likely to render it serviceable to such of my countrymen as may be meditating an attempt to improve their circumstances by emigration, particularly if their views of where best to go are either undecided, or point in the direction of Southern Africa.
I have passed five eventful years in that country, and in what I have said of it I speak from personal experience, without any prejudices to gratify, or any party to serve, but actuated, I trust, by a sincere desire to be of service.
It is true that a cloud has again gathered over the land, but I feel justified in venturing the opinion that, under Providence, it will be dispersed by the judgment and energy of Sir Harry Smith.
The tide of emigration having lately set strongly in the direction of Natal, I have thought it necessary to give some account of that district, but as I have no personal knowledge of it, I have confined myself to the information supplied by published official reports.