THE GREAT TREK. by Ransford, Oliver

Readers Union, Nreton Abbott, 1973. 248 pp, 8vo (8 3/4" H), hard cover in dust jacket. B&w plates, maps. "The Great Trek from Cape Colony across the Orange River into what is now the Transvaal, the Orange Free State and Natal is one of the great feats of human endurance in modern hi story. Armed only with muskets, but with unlimited faith, a few thousand Africaner men and women, the pilgrim fathers of the veld, trekked into the wild opposed by the two most powerful Bantu military empires of the time - the Matabele an d t h e Z u l u . They were migrating north to escape the restrictions to their freedom imposed by the British who took the Cape from the Dutch during the Napoleonic wars, and to set up a state of their own....This early nineteenth century migrat io n h ad f a r re ac hi ng consequences. Within twenty years the advance had doubled the area of effective white settlement in South Africa and because they had thrust themselves amongst the Bantu the emigrant farmers had greatly increased the s ub co nti nen t's r ac e p rob lem s...." Book slightly cocked, very small bump at corners, slight bump at top/bottom of spine and at bottom edge of front board, minor soiling to edges of textblock. Dust jacket light edge wear/wrinkling - moderat e a t t op/b otto m of sp ine and fla p-fo lds, some tape on inside edges, two very small stains on rear panel. Very Good/Very Good-.