The Great Trek by Oliver Ransford

 Item Description: (London: John Murray, 1972) 0719526256, 1972. 8vo; original green cloth, lettered in gilt on spine; pictorial dustwrapper; tinted top edge; pp. xii + 248; plates; maps and plans. Dustwrapper a little nicked on spine panel; archival cover loosely fitted to DJ. Very good condition. "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 history. 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 and the Zulu. 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. . During his long residence in Africa Oliver Ransford, who is now established as one of the foremost writers on African history, has repeatedly visited the historical sites associated with the Great Trek. This has enabled him to recapture brilliantly the atmosphere of this central episode of South African history."