At age 60 William Chapman began writing down his memoirs and this book contains his engaging and enjoyable diary entries in the late nineteenth century.
The book is divided as follows:
- the story of his life (called “Reminiscences concerning the life of William James Bushnell Chapman”) until 1902, written at his home Mont Verdun or Sandula, Mombolo, Angola and dated 22nd March 1918, his sixtieth birthday anniversary.
- his reminiscences from 1903 to 1916
- an account of the entry of the Trek-Boers into Angola and of their sojourn during the forty-eight years they struggled in that country under Portuguese rule, which he was still writing in 1932.
Chapman grew up in Cape Town but was determined to go to Damaraland, being bent on following the life his father had led. He succumbed to the call of freedom and his ambition to become a big game hunter. He desired to see the hunting fields, the forests, the game, and everything he had read of in books of travel, He left Table Bay in 1874 for Walvis Bay and started his adventures from there. He tells of his life as a trader, also active in hunting, transport riding, road building, cattle farming, agriculture, gold prospecting, and an agent for the supply of wagons. Chapman’s narrations of his journeys, travels and encounters are fascinating and give insight into the adventurous life at that time.
Through these diaries, and with extensive research by Nicol Stassen, we are offered a unique insight into Chapmans’s journeys, travels and encounters.
