2110-1-8-1

[Note added by another hand: Read & return - A.B.]

Johannesburg Oct: 7 1901

My dear old Nan

The mail-bag closes here on Friday, and as I only arrived on Friday night, I am afraid I missed it. If I had known I would have written a pencil letter coming up in the train. My letter will go in the Colonial Office bag & be posted in London, so don't be surprised at its English penny stamp, and think that I am in hiding in the metropolis.

Last week was, I think, the most stirring and varied in my life, and you shall have an account of my adventures from the beginning. I left the Mount Nelson as homesick as Davie Balfour. It was curious to pass from its atmosphere of French cookery, and promises to hunt in Ireland with the Rathdonells and dance the first reel at the Perth gathering 3 years hence with Mrs Nelson, to a cape-cart driven by a yelling nigger down

narrow streets, and then to the station with its military guards and crowds of refugees. However I liked it: I felt I was at last getting near my work. They had given me a carriage to myself, and I had provided myself with a hamper and 3 books - Red Rowans [underscored], Many Inventions [underscored] and Hardy's Return of the Native [underscored]. Scherpers and Smuts we supposed to be lying about 100 miles up the line, so we went very slowly. It was funny to see the soldiers in the blockhouses along the line turning out to meet the train with fixed bayonets, and the Kaffir scouts and the watch-fires. By and by I fell asleep, and wakened about 6 o'clock away up in the Karoo among huge strong hills absolutely desert except for clumps of heath and prickly pears and cactuses. The air was marvellously fine and clear, and sunrise was a thing to remember. We breakfasted at Matjiesfontein, and I had time to have a look at Wauchope's grave. All day we travelled through the same beautiful broken desert country. I went out and sat on the end of the train, and I have never felt such absolute Sabbatical stillness as in that great desert. At Beaufort West there was a Hussar Tommy, going up to De Aar to

have his arm dressed. I took him into my carriage and gave him meat & drink & dinner at Victoria West. He was a delightful Irishman who insisted on showing me his mother's portrait. He had got the Victoria Cross [X marked in pencil] for riding down the firing line, saving a wounded man and then with two bullets in him riding till his horse was shot to warn his men about an ambush. He complained to me that the only reason he did it was that he had violent toothache at the time, and would have "ridden down the owld Divvil himsilf."

About midday on Thursday we arrived at Orange River at Norval's Pont and entered the Orange River Colony. Grass began to appear, and the country became quite flat and pastoral. We lunched at a horrible dusty little place called Springfontein. The food was very bad - meat as tough as indiarubber, everything tepid and flies in clouds over the table. Soldiers began to come in at wayside stations - officers going up to Bloemfontein, so dusty and ragged that only their white teeth and clean nails distinguished them from tramps. One delightful man called [?Gaussin] of the Scots Guards, whom I knew in London, turned up at Edenburg, going to Bloemfontein for new clothes. We had a long crack about people I knew. We got to Bloemfontein about 6, and he took me to dine at the club. Afterwards I went to the theatre in the Town Hall and

saw a very odd representation of 'The Private Secretary'. One had to have military passes and the countersign to move a yard from the station. The train stopped the night at Bloemfontein, and I slept on board and wakened next morning at another dusty desert called Kroonstad where I breakfasted. There I found two other soldiers I knew - young Haig of Bemersyde and a man Rawlinson who used to be at Trinity. I got their company all the way to Johannesburg, where they were going for 3 days' leave, having been fighting continuously for 6 months. I heard from them of the disaster to Lovats' Scouts, when Jonny Murray (Lord Ewbank's son) and the Colonel, a brother of Lord Mansfield, were killed. About 4 o'clock we crossed the Vaal at Viljoens Drift and entered the Transvaal. From there to Johannesburg the country was very pretty - quite green, with a fair amount of water and some very pretty farms.

We got to our destination about 8 o'clock on Friday evening. I had travelled in 21 days about 8000 miles and I felt very well but very dirty. I went straight to Heath's Hotel and wallowed in a hot bath. It is a large, comfortable building, full of soldiers and their wives, but the food is bad owing to the difficulties of getting supplies. It was a great pleasure to get into a bed with sheets where one could roll about, after the narrow bunks on the steamer and the narrower ones on the train. In the morning (Saturday) I went and reported

myself at the government office. I have got a very nice office to myself, and I have seen all the staff, and very nice people they are. They are Major Lambton, Military Secretary - Captain Henley and Lord Brooke, military attaches - Walrond, Private Secretary, Algy Wyndham, Assistant Secretary, J.B. Political Private Secretary, Basil Blackwood, assistant-secretary for the Orange River Colony, Perry, Imperial Secretary (i.e.for Rhodesia and the wilder parts). Lambton, Walrond, Henley & Brooke live with Milner at the Residency, and they offered to put me up there, but as it's 3 miles out, I thought I would stay on at Heath's till we arranged about the house that Algy, Wyndham, Basil Blackwood, [blue ink addition 'Gerald'] Craig-Sellar and I am to have together. At present we have scarecly shaken down yet. There is a great deal of work to be done, but the various people's provinces are not clearly marked out so nobody quite knows what he has to do. I hope things will soon [scored out] settle down, as my work which is dependant upon the information supplied by the other people, will not get on very rapidly till everything is in order.

I lunched at the club on Saturday - I have been made an honorary member of both the Rand and the New Clubs & th[is] evening I went out out to dine with His Excellency. One had to