2110-1-8-7

c/o The Lord Milner Johannesberg, S. Africa.

Oct. 28:: 1901

My dear old Mother

Many thanks to you and Anna for your letters. I must first speak about the Port Elizabeth scheme. I hope when you have had my second and third letters you will have changed your mind about it. The place, as I have learned, is ugly, uninteresting & not very healthy. But the really damning thing - which to my mind makes it impossible that you & Father shd. come - is the recent proclamation of martial law. We are constantly getting refugees up from P. Elizabeth & other coast towns & they say that life is perfectly unendurable there. You cannot land without a pass, living is extremely costly there: no society except the soldiers, you have to show a pass at every street-corner, and you cannot

stir a foot outside the town. Do you think these circumstances conducive to a pleasant holiday? It is bad enough for an official up here, but what must it be for civilians in a seaport town. You would spend there the dreariest & most harassed month of your life. I wired through the Colonial Office to Uncle Willie, asking him to dissuade Father, as I was afraid a wire to Glasgow might scare you. I certainly think Father shd. have a holiday - particularly a sea-voyage. But let him go to Madeira or somewhere nearer home, - even to Egypt. I will pay part of the cost. But I beseech you most solemnly not to come out here just now. Of course the martial law régime may end, but as far as I can see at present it may easily go on for a year. The sea-bord of S. Africa is never a place for a holiday at the best & just now it is impossible. Now, don't let yourself be persuaded

to the contrary by any wandering minister. I am a far better judge. But you must take a holiday, and I hope you will try Madeira, which is charming, or the Mediterranean. S. Africa is a famine-stricken spot full of hollow-faced struggling men - no more a place for a holiday than Whitechapel.

H.E. went off to Natal on Thursday last. He left me in charge of a lot of things and I have been considerably busy ever since. I have to organise and preside over the Refugee Relief Committee & also look after the tedious Committee to visit the Concentration Camps. I am also up to my eyes in my proper business of Land Settlement & Compensation. I like the work more & more. It pleases me greatly to try to get a chaos of papers into some clear system, and especially it pleases me to meet with all sorts & conditions of men and try to get them to do what I want. By the Mail I had letters from Uncle John & a delightful scrawl from J. Edgar. I have asked him over here from a

Saturday to a Monday, and told him to keep straight South for 7000 miles & then turn sharply to his right. He suffers much from the heat. I see in the Peebles paper the Town Clerk of Stirling's appointment. What sort of relation is he?

My confidential clerk is called Somerville. I thought he spoke with a nice Peeblesshire tongue, so I asked him one day where he came from. He said "Thankerton." "Megsty", says I, "then ye'll ken Quothquan?" "Fine", says he. So you see I am not so far from Quothquan after all. He sent me down a great bundle of 'Peeblesshires' on Saturday. He is a delightful fellow and I should think would do very well here.

I am in the best of health, and very comfortable in my new house. I was greatly troubled last week by my niggers all falling sick. I dozed them with all my Gregory's Mixture & Quinine, and three recovered. The fourth I packed off to the Hospital yesterday, & I hear today that

he has got a slight attack of enteric. I thought niggers were safe from that disease, but one lives and learns. The result is that our staid & superior English butler has to groom my horse just now. The mosquitoes bite us at night a good deal. I get up at six to read Dutch & walk in my garden till breakfast. Then we all walk down to the office. I stay till 6, walk home & go for a short gallop in the wood. Then we dress to dine at 8. We had a dinner-party on Saturday, quite civilised, with one lady, Mrs Perry, the wife of the Imperial Secretary. On Saturday I went with Algy for a long ride in the veldt. I really never saw anything like the flowers.