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Johannesburg
March: 20: 1902
My dear old William
Many thanks for your last letter. I was interested to hear about the Tuggers. It was bad luck that we did not go head. I congratulate you on getting your colours. By this time I hope the Mods. demon will have been exorcised. You must let me know the results at once. I fancy you will get a second. There is a fate against the Buchan family getting firsts in that
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ludicrous exam. Did you have a Mods. dinner after it? We had one - in my rooms, and were fined £1 a piece afterwards for breaking windows.
We are waiting hourly for news of Rhodes' death. For the last week he has only been kept alive by oxygen. It is rather a tragedy, dying at 49, when his work was just beginning: though his disease is undoubtedly partly due to his habits. He is the same age as H.E. I don't like him, but he's undoubtedly a great man, one of the few Napoleonic people we
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have had since Marlborough.
I expect copies of my book next week, as I see from newspaper cuttings sent me that it was to be published on Feb 28th. I hope my worthy father's book will do well.
You will now be in Peeblesshire, you lucky beast. I think April is very nearly the best time of year there. I would give a lot to get back my old spring tours with J. Edgar, with the snow on the hilltops, & that inspired idiot sliding down snow-wreaths on his behind.
Nothing much happens here to disturb the monotony of the days darg. H.E. went to Pretoria yesterday for 2 days,
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so I am having a brief respite. Last night I went home early and went for a long walk in the veldt. I had a magnificent gallop in the dusk along a track where I knew there were no holes. It is splendid swinging along in the cool veldt air, with the sky above the colour of a sloeberry, except for a great fiery sea in the West.
I am really enjoying Bryce's 'Studies in History & Jurisprudence'. I rather recommend you to read it for the I.C.S, as it contains a good many of the questions on the borderland of history & law, which they sometimes set.
Love to all & best wishes for a pleasant holiday,
Your affectionate brother
John
