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so there WILL be mistakes. 
Please tell us which page 0f which Portmanteua.

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6 pages, in two sections.

[Betty was 19 1/2, and had been married a month when she wrote this, after arriving at what would be their home for the next six months)

                                                                                                              Sesheke

                                                                                                                  N.R.

                                                                                                      27th Oct. 1936
Darling Everybody,
    Well, here we are at last, in our own home, and I'll tell you all about everything from where we left off on Thursday.  I'm sorry, again I have no carbon paper, as our luggage hasn't come yet, and this is the Office Tripewrite and I hadn't the nerve to ask for some Government Carbon as well, so you'll have to send it on to Pax [her parents' house] when you've finished with it.

    On Friday, we did the usual nothing, and did it VERY well, vague shoppings and orserings and ruching about, and it was terribly hot.  We still hadn't been given any Marching orders, till the evening, when they rang up Lusaka, and Lusaka said we'd better get on with it, so we went over to the Falls Hotel for tea and planned with Spencer, the garage man, to hire his aeropleane and fly up at four o'clock tomorrow afternoon, which sounded fine.

    On the way back we stopped as usual at the hippo-ey place, and we hadn't been there long. Lo and behold, two ears, two eyes and two nostrils, sticking out of the water about two hundred yards down the bank and about fifty yards away from it.  

So we walked down to the nearest possible place, and sat and watched him for a long time, and he didn't do anything except push his face u[ to breath about every two minutes.  Then at last he suddenly pushed his mouthh up with a great hooroosh, and did an emormous yawn, and we could see all last month's breakfast all the way down his huge pink throat.  He WAS so funny.

Then he began to get quite skittish, and his back appeared and he emerged as far as his shoulders with his funny thick scaly neck, and he kept on yawning, as though he was doing it purely for our benefit.  I managed to get about twenty feet of [16 mm cine] film of him because he was so close and acted so well that I couldn't resist it, although we got lots of hippo in the Kruger park.  I do hope he wll come out well.  It is only the second film I have taken, so he may not, but I put all the light and footage right as far as I could.

    We watched him for a long time, and eventually the light started to go, and he stopped jumping about, so we went along home and some people came in to play Bridge, and I watched the hands from behind and learnt quite a lot, but they were a bit quick, and also not being able to see them all at once upset things rather!

    Saturday. We packed leisurely all day, and after tea we drove along to the aerodrome and waited and waited and waited with some other people who had come to see us off, and eventually the pilot arrived in his car, at about 4:30, and said that we had better not fly that afternoon as the plane wasn't going too well.  It lived at the aerodrome where we were - the Livingstone one - and he had flown over to the Falls to fill up with petrol, because it was threepence a gallon cheaper there, and on the way the engine had been popping, so he had to leave it there.  So, thanks to a Scotchman's Scotch mind, your children were saved from a dastardly death in the depths of the Zambezi!

    Sunday.  Poor Mrs. Cartmell-Robincon had to take us back to her house for another night, but she absolutely refused to allow us to go to the Fairmount.  I think actually she rather enjoyed having us, as she was rather lonely without her husband.  She is coming home next month to be with the children for a year, and will probably be living at New Milton near their school, so I told her to look you up, Mum, as I expect you would like first hand news of us!

    So we dashed out to the aerodrome at an early hour, and when we had been waiting about half an hour, the pilot strolled up in his car, and started to get the aeroplane out of the shed in a lisurely way, and we started about an hour and twenty minutes after we had been told to be there.  It was another plane, and there was just room for the pilot and us and our dressing case and office and a bundle of Frangipani cuttings and the Blue Box.

    And off we went, circling over the river above the falls, and heading up-river, and it was rather bumpy at first and G. said that he would be very proud of himself if he wasn't sick.  I didn't feel a bit sick, but actually felt a wee bit nervous because we rocked about so, and kept dropping a few feet and then jumping up a few feet, and it was rather nerve-racking.  But it didn't really matter because G. was there and if we had crashed we would have been able to land quite easily because the ground was so flat all round the banks of the river.

    It was lovely seeing it from a bird's eye view, and it was very low, and what is usually marshy rushes all along the banks is flat and dry and covered in game.  We saw a bull sable with lovely satiny black skin walking about by himself in a lordly manner, and huge herds of little lechwe, like the little head that Daddy got that is up in the sitting room at Weston.  We flew very low over them, and the wildebeest and zebra got awfully excited and galloped about in wild circles, whirling their tails round and round.

    The pilot had said that we would atke about forty minutes to get there, and somebody else had said it would take about an hour, so I expected that he would say when we were arriving. Then suddenly I saw the landing ground laid out like a huge T below us, and a little house, and a long avenue of gum trees with another little house at the end, and two other little houses, and a jackarander tree, and there was the great City of Sesheke before our eyes.

    So down we came, and did a beautiful landing and presently Mr.. Phibbs arrived to meet us. He is the man we are taking over from, and he is about [thirty] 28 and has a face just like Tiger Tim in that silly little paper Chick's Own, or some paper like that. He has long fair hair and spectacles and he's very long and thin, but he's not at all bad looking and has quite a nice voice. He's been married fifteen months, and they met on board coming out here after his leave, and he didn't see her again for a year and a half, during which time they settled everything up by post, and he went down to Maritzburg on local leave, where she was staying with her brother, and they got married, and this was their first station.    So Sesheke has been the first station of three different couples, all of whom met on board ship: Isn't that extraordinary. The other couple were the Russels, who we met for a few minutes.on the platform at Cape Town. And the other couple was US.
    The aeroplane went off straight away, and I took a film of it going, and THEN we went to look at Our House. I don't quite know how to start describing it, because I know you'll want to know all about it.    The Front Door faces south west, and has. a lovely wide verandah with a mouldy little red lechwe's horns on the wall. There are two doors off the verandah, one into the sitting room, which is square with two windows, and the other into the dining room, also square with two windows, and communicating doors into the back verandah, on each side of which are store-rooms.    Then you go back to the verandah again, and walk along it past the dining room window, through a door into a tiny room which is either a dressing room or, a spare room, and into our bedroom, which sticks out at the side in a queer way, and which is lovely and big and airy and light. The bathroom is between the spare bedroom and the back door. I think I'll have to draw you a map as I can't describe it properly!
    Well, the first thing that struck us was how very bare it was, because all their things had gone already, and there was only the Government furniture left, consisting of a few rather ricketty tables, and half a dozen cushion-less arm charis with raw-hide plaited seats, a few bookcases, and leather-seated dining-room chairs. The walls are whitewashed, with brown skirting boards, and a piece of tin sticking out all the way round at the bottom to stop the white ants and animals from crawling up the walls. The walls have to be dipped with Jeyes every single day to keep the white ants away.

G. speaking. The mail to Livingstone and England goes today, so Bet is writing a bread and butter letter to Mrs C- Robinson, in case she gets carried away with this letter and should forget the other. By the way I'm wrong about the mail actually it arrives here from Mongu tomorrow at 10 oclock and goes off also by barge almost at once, so it has to be ready by that hour. The other mail up river arrives early on Sunday morning and goes on at once for Mongu. Phibbs says that the mail from England takes about a month by ordinary mail, and that the air mail is very quick and only takes a fortnight or less, so we hope you will use that. Next year all letters will be carried by air mail from England to South Africa for the usual 2d. As we told you last week Phibbs is supposed to becoming back here when he
comes back from leave in 6 months time, but he has quite different ideas on the subject, and says he will move heaven and earth to be moved out of Barotse, and if necessary will ask for a transfer to another colony; He says he has been very happy here and so has his wife but that he now wants a move.  The new Government policy is for every official to do two tours in a province before he is moved so we can take it as almost certain that we shall not return to Barotse next time. Personally I think it's pretty certain that he won't come back here and that we shall be allowed to stay on here for the whole of our tour.
    The Watmores have gone up to Mongu where he will be D.C. and they passed through here a short time ago so we just missed them. I gather that the bird shooting here in the rains is quite good and the fishing very good indeed, but that there is little game in the district and almost none at all near here. However as Phibbs is not at all keen, there may easily be more than he suspects. I had a letter from Tom Vaughan Jones, who has just gone on leave and he is coming back at the end of his leave to be Acting Game Warden for Northern Rhodesia and will be stationed at Livingstone so we shall see a certain amount of them I hope later on. The greater part of the native population of the district is within about 12 miles of here, and the whole of the native Government is shared between Imwiko, brother of the Paramount Chief and a woman who is also of the royal family. I think she is called the Mokwai Kayiko, but as she has just got slight leprosy she is not entertained in European houses. Imwiko was educated in England, speaks good English and is treated as a European as far as entertaining is concerned.    

Betty  speaking again.
    We found all G's things from Mankoya here already - seven boxes of books, beautifully packed by himself, and the only thing he really loves and takes care of of all his property! (Except his newest bit of property, of course, which he takes
great care of.) also his tin bath full of a lovely muddle of socks, jerseys, golf balls, pipes, bandages, cigarettes, photos, curtains, etc, all jumbled uo together and a Large number of Holes in all of them made by Fish Beetles. Also a packing-case full of his china, none of which was broken, though one or two are chipped and cracked; it is plain white, and we are keeping that for going out on tour, and keeping Jane Baden-Powell's set for ordinary wear. Also some cases of Musonda's cooking pots and pans - a lovely collection of things, and we had treated him to a lovely set of new ones when we met him in Livingstone. The linen was all mixed up among the other things, and is very dusty and dirty
but in very good repair as far as Holes is concerned.
    Well, I don't expect you want to hear any more about that, but we've been having such fun undoing it all and putting it away, trying to get it all cleared up before the other stuff and the presents arrive.    I've sent down to Livingstone for some curtain stuff, but we couldn't bare the house so bare, so we've put up
his old pink ones for the time being, though they are a bit faded and going in a few places.    
    Mr. Phibbs is living in the old office, which is about mile away down the avenue of gums, and the new office is in more or less the same direction but further out to the left of the map, and, the gaol is in a triangle with it and the old office. The Village and Mission are about a mile and a half away, and I think I'd better draw you another little map of the geography of the place.       He goes on the 7th, and his wife left about a month ago, and they are meeting at the Cape to go on leave for six months, after which they are supposed to be coming back here, that's why we are supposed to be going on to Mankoya. He is leaving us his dear friendly lazy sentimental great dane, who is called Chief. He is rather dirty because he WILL lie with his back against the anti-ant dipped wall, and gets his fur all coated with Jeyes, but he has taken to us with great enthusiasm and Shakes Hands with vigour whenever we come up to their house, which we do for meals until our stores arrive.

    We haven't seen any hippos yet, because they all stay the other side of the river because they get shot if they poke their noses out of the reeds on the other side. The natives are awful at slaughtering anything there is, specially hippo, so I don't expect we' ll see any for a long time. We might see some crocs before long though, with luck.    There are two ponies here. One is old and rather bony and poor, with short stocky little pasterns and a short stocky little neck and not a very beautiful face, and he has been here for years, the other one is only three, and Mr. Phibbs got him from Bechuanaland, and he's a very nice little beast, not bad-looking, bay, about fourteen hands high, with a nice eager face and a lovely flexing neck, not very good shoulders but quite nice strong legs and quarters. Phibbs and I rode down to the Mission last night, and mine was very eager to go, but when he did settle down to a good canter he was marvellously easy to guide and pull in, because of this lovely flex and a tender mouth. He was lovely to ride though not half as lovely as Gipsy of course. 

    Well, I think I'd better stop now. There's a terrific lot still to tell you about, but it's getting almost too dark to see, and we have to borrow a lamp from Phibbs, which only comes after supper, and the mail goes after breakfast tomorrow and I know I won't have time to do any more before it goes.
    So I'll send this off, just to let you know how happy we are to be in our own home at last, even though we haven't many of our things round us. It'll be marvellous when we are really settled in and Phibbs has gone and the boys have come and we can really get down to living here.
    So, goodnight, and I'll write you another big portmanteau next mail.
    Lots of love to you all and Ready and Shawgm and Twm and Bong and Rusty and the Featherstons and Annie,

                                            from your children