The behavior of the doctor's first two patients I had from a surgeon's daughter in Pimlico.

The servant-girl and her box; the purple-faced, pig-faced Beak and his justice, are personal experience.

The business of house-renting, and the auction-room, is also personal experience.
In the nautical business I had the assistance of two practical seamen: my brother, William Barrington Reade, and Commander Charles Edward Reade, R.N.
In the South African business I gleaned from Mr.Day's recent handbooks; the old handbooks; Galton's "Vacation Tourist;" "Philip Mavor; or, Life among the Caffres;" "Fossor;" "Notes on the Cape of Good Hope," 1821; "Scenes and Occurrences in Albany and Caffre-land," 1827; Bowler's "South African Sketches;" "A Campaign in South Africa," Lucas; "Five Years in Caffre-land," Mrs.Ward; etc., etc., etc.

But my principal obligation on this head is to Mr.Boyle, the author of some admirable letters to the Daily telegraph, which he afterwards reprinted in a delightful volume.

Mr.Boyle has a painter's eye, and a writer's pen, and if the African scenes in "A Simpleton" please my readers, I hope they will go to the fountain-head, where they will find many more.
As to the plot and characters, they are invented.
The title, "A Simpleton," is not quite new.