2110-1-8-2

[in pencil] Please return to A. Buchan

c/o The Lord Milner Johannesburg. Oct: 13: 1901

My dearest old Mother,

I got the English mail yesterday, and in letters from Anna & Uncle Willie heard the sad news about my old grandmother. Somehow I had got to believe that she was going to get better, and the news made me very dowie [sad]. She was always the chief part of Broughton to me, and when I think of a small boy who rushed in for "caky-sugy" and of Jenny Berry [room in Broughton Green], and the hot summer days in the stackyard I could almost cry. I have written to poor Aunt Aggy, and I have asked them to allow me to put up a tombstone.I think I have a right, and that she would have liked it. I feel very sorry for the Broughton and Bamflat people, & particularly for you. It must have been a great strain on you. I hope you are keeping well, and that my

father and the Mhor are not causing you anxiety.

Thank Anna very much for her long kind letter. It was a great pleasure to get letters after a month's silence. I heard also from Uncle Willie, Mrs Malcolm, Dougal Malcolm, Roland Vaughan-Williams, Seton of the India Office, & Chamberlain. The merit of being in the ends of the earth is that one relishes Home letters with particular gusto. I should like very much if you could send me any Glasgow papers or anything you think might interest me. You have now had 4 letters from me, and so you know pretty well how I am doing. Last week we had the most terrific rains, ever - down pours that flooded the roads in five minutes. Then on Friday the weather cleared up, and we have been enjoying weather like a West Highland June. It is wonderful to see the brown veldt become emerald green under the first touch of the rains. We go into our new house on Wednesday or Thursday,

and we must start to get the garden in order at once. We have got a very pretty little orchard, with plums, aprictos, peaches, cherries, pears and some odd tropical fruit. We have also got a field of green maize, (the "mealy", in Transvaal parlance) We have all got different jobs about the house. Craig-Sellar & Wyndham are joint-Minister of the Interior. I am Groom of the Stables & Minister of Agriculture. Basil Blackwood is Master of the Buckhounds. Living, if you [go] about it the proper way, is not so very dear. Luxuries are fairly cheap, & some necessaries. Milk, eggs & vegetables are very dear to buy, so we shall provide them ourseves. Milk, when it can be got, costs 9d per ping. Eggs cost 6d each, but we think this rather good, as some months ago they cost 30/ a dozen. I think £600 will well cover all my expenditure.

I am getting rapidly into my work. At present I am doing all kinds of things, in order, as H.E. says, that I may get a general view of the whole business, before tackling particular questions. On the whole I am much more hopeful about the country. We will make the Transvaal overwhelmingly British, and in a Federated S. Africa, we will be able then to control any disloyal Dutch elements

in the Cape Colony. I find I get on very well with the Johannesburgers, and hear that I am very popular with them. I think a Scotsman is always more adaptable than an Englishman - he is more of a humourist. I have been asked to dinner by most of the great capitalists. The man interests me entirely & I have become great friends with him. His name is Schumacher - half-English, half-German - and he is a powerful partner in Ecksteins. He was at Harrow, and came out here only 6 years ago. He is about 31, and is worth anything from 1 to 3 millions. He seems to me a genuine financial genius, and at the same time he is a man of great culture, and has the best private collection of Napoleon's prints & relics that I have seen. It was funny to find oneself talking in this outlandish place about the Mèmorie of Las Cases, and Taine & M. Thiers. In addition he fought as a volunteer all through the war, and is a Captain in the Imperial Light Horse.

I see Macdonell sometimes, who is a barrister & a Times [underlined] correspondent, & not very prosperous. He sends his respect to you. One of the Master of Elibank's

brothers, a very nice fellow, is here as secretary to Sir Godfrey Lagden, the administrator of Native affairs. I see by a wire which came yesterday that the 'Spectator' has published Rhodes' letter at last, and that they thoroughly justify our attitude and prove that £5000 is given to the Liberal party in return for a guarantee that Egypt would not be evacuated.

We hope to go into our new house on Wednesday. Unfortunately our English maid is in hospital with erisypelas. It is an awful nuisance, & is turning Craig-Sellar's hair grey. On Sunday afternoon I rode out 10 miles to Elandsfontein, to see one of the Bonham-Carters, a Captain in the Buffs, who is sick in hospital with enteric. He was one of the biggest & strongest men I have ever known, and he is lying there a mere skeleton. However he is quite convalescent & is going home shortly. Coming home