2110-1-9-16

HIGH COMMISSIONER'S OFFICE, JOHANNESBURG,

Feb: 24: 1902

My dearest Nan

Many thanks for your interesting last letter. You seem to have had a very pleasant time at Port Bannatyne. I hope you will enjoy Dundee as much. Does that mark the end of your travels? When do you return to Peeblesshire again.

Nothing much has been happening here last week. The first part I was very busy; but now H.E. has gone up to Pretoria for 3 days and I am having a brief rest. I had a letter from John Edgar,

on Saturday, full of gaiety - snipe-shooting, balls, picnics, golf with the Irish Lady Champion etc etc. He says he has cleaned out all the snipe in lower Egypt, which I, who know exactly his shoooting qualifications, believe to be a wicked lie. Anyhow his life is very different from the hard-bitten existence we lead here. However last week we had a certain amount of dissipation. I dined with little Marshall on Wednesday night and met a lot of old Johannesburgers. I really think a great deal of that little man. On Friday night there was a Bachelors' Ball. I had to go, as I was dining for it,

but I stayed less than an hour. You never [saw] such a lot of ugly Jewish faces & bad figures. On Saturday we had a cricket match to which H.E. came. Our eleven beat a soldiers' eleven by about 200 runs. There is to be a steeple-chase on Easter Monday, for which Hugh Wyndham is entering his horse. Hugh is much better, now that the weather is drier and colder.

In Saturday's paper I saw the sensational announcement that (ST Earl of) Lytton is going to marry Pamela Plowden. Neither of them has a penny, & she is at least 6 years older than he is. Poor (ST Lord) Basil Blackwood is still very dowie and

silent. I expect that family has been left very badly off.

I was rather disappointed, for I have been estimating the costs of a shooting trip to the Zambesi, & am afraid it can't be done under £500 - which puts it beyond my purse. My book of S. African studies is getting on well.

Here is a good story. A Cameron Highlander was on sentry duty just after Lord Roberts' proclamation came out that "all sheep, goats, fowls etc were to be strictly respected." It was very dark and he was rather eerie, when suddenly a sheep butted against him. He at once transfixed it with his bayonet and flung it behind him. As dawn was breaking two staff officers came round and their eye fell on the dead sheep. The Cameron felt he had to do something to clear himself. So he turned round and struck it fiercely with his bayonet again, crying, "Tak that, ye deevil, for trying to bite me."

With much love, your affectionate brother John