2110-1-8-8

[note at top in Buchan's hand heavily scrawled out in ink and blue crayon; appears to refer to Port Elizabeth.]

c/o Lord Milner Johannesburg.

Oct:29::1901

My venerable Grey Rat [brother William Buchan]

I saw by your scrawl on Anna's letter that you go up to Oxford tomorrow. My respects to the old place. I hope you will have a pleasant and prosperous term - a 1st in Mods, and four colours. You will become a second-year man, a position of great dignity and responsibility. I hope, too, that you will be a member of the Club by the time this letter reaches you.

I was horribly disturbed to hear that my misguided Father & Mother proposed to come to Port Elizabeth. [JAS note: for a holiday] I at once wired through the Colonial Office to Uncle Willie, telling him to dissuade them. They don't realise what an awful thing Martial Law is

for a civilian to live under. The dear old 'Spectator' was supressed here last week by the military authorities for an article attacking Lord Kitchener. It would all be very amusing, if it weren't also tragic, for the military are so damnably incompetent & at the same time prevent us getting on with our common work of reconstruction. Lord M. went off to Natal last week and has left me in charge of a sickening number of things. I am running the Refugee Relief business myself, and the Land Settlement & Compensation. It is great fun interviewing & talking to all kinds of people from military authorities to Rand millionaires. I get more and more hopeful about the work every day, as it grows harder. You remember my telling you what I thought M's character was. I think I was just right in my diagnosis. He is the most tragic figure in S. Africa, and

one of the greatest anywhere. You have a man of a superhumanly clear intelligence, & an iron will - both of wh. control a highly sensitive temperament. He is frightfully overworked & worried, but he never shows it - you only see it in his hollow cheeks, and tired eyes. The result is that he has become a kind of fatalist, going on doggedly with his work, but not caring much except for doing his duty. When one goes out riding with him, he gallops wildly over an impossible country, full of barbed wire and ant-holes, while you puff along, praying dismally, 20 yards in his wake. It is a kind of index to his life. I only hope he may get the next two years tided over without breaking down.

If you can get over the tragic aspect of affairs, the whole country strikes you as comic opera. You have flowers without scent, birds without song, rivers without water, and the rainy season in the summer. It is very odd to be pulling up for weeds in the garden begonias,

and great scarlet geraniums & planting simple little European flowers. There is a bird called the Widow-bird with a tail so long that when it comes rain it is over-weighted & lies helpless on the ground.

My niggers also fell sick last week, so I dosed them with Gregory's Mixture & quinine alternately. Three recovered at once, & the fourth I packed off to hospital, where I hear he had a slight attack of enteric. My confidential clerk speaks with a nice soft South-country accent, & is called Somerville. Yesterday I asked him where he came from. He said "Thankerton." I asked him if he kenned a bit called Quoth-quan, & he said "Fine".

I heard the other day of an old minister in Aberdeen, who was a great Pro-Boer. He prayed for the war. "Bless, O Lord, our soldiers & sailors in S. Africa - though you know fine, O Lord, that they've no business to be there."

Love to all in Oxford

Your affectionate brother

John Buchan

[repeat of previous document]