A valuable and fascinating piece of Africana, and generally regarded as the British South Africa Company's official version of the Matabele War in which Rhodes's settlers finally entrenched their position north of the Limpopo. Written from the Chartered Company's standpoint, the account lacks impartiality. It is, nevertheless, a basic reference source and one of the most note-worthy books to be produced in the Rhodesiana Reprint Library Series. The work is nominally a history of the cause and effect of the War, but in fact its scope is wider, covering the period from the arrival of Mzilikazi, in what is present day Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), to the death of his successor, Lobengula. The origins of the British South Africa Company are traced and the Occupation by the Pioneer Column in 1890 is recounted. It was published only nine months after the disastrous loss of the Shangani Patrol, and Victorian patriotic fervour shouts from its pages. Most of the contemporary reviews were highly favourable. The principal portion of the text was contributed by five noted personalities: Major P. W. Forbes (officer-in-charge of the ill-fated Shangani expedition); Major Sir John C. Willoughby; H. Rider Haggard; Frederick Courteney Selous and P.B.S. Wrey. The new Publishers have slightly reduced the size of the original 1894 edition to conform with the format of the Series.