P017 19370216
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Portmanteau 016.
Machili
N. Rhodesia.
8th February, 1937.
Dearest Everybody,
Here I am again at last, and I hope you didn't mind the gap without a portmanteau, but I just hadn't the chance of doing one, and I don't know that I'll be able to say everything I've got to say in this one, as we have done so much since the last one, judging by my portmanteau is when we were just sitting gently at home, goodness knows how long this one will be when we've been doing anything but sitting gently at home.
Well, on Wednesday 27th January we decided to go off the next day, so we told them to pack the things we need. Chishimba did Cheadle's close, as he always has done them and knows what he wants. Sunder got out all his pots and pans and lot of tins of things from the store, and laid them out in a row for my inspection before packing them; I left all the food to him, as he has done it so much before and knows far better than I do what he will need. G.has always just said to him "we are going on tour on Thursday for about 10 days. Pack." And it has all been done. So we followed the same principle now, except that Musonda insisted that the Mama should come and approve of everything we were taking. So, just to keep my end up, I added another tin of Heinz baked and another packet of bicarb for G.'s indigestion, and took out a tin of beef and a tin of Virginian cigarettes (as G.only smokes Turkish and then only when he isn't allowed a pipe), and then Musonda pack them all into a Vanesta box.
That box was lovely. It contained: food; plates, cups and saucers (China, white, old); classes; bottles of whiskey and lime juice, knives, forks and spoons – all just pushed in hipsy-whipsy with an apology for a bit of newspaper poking into odd cracks and crannies to give some semblance of security to the glassware.
Chishimba and Peter packed Cheadle's tin bath (we are keeping mine for Robin) with shirts, socks frocks pillowcases tiles and promo sector. And put the beautiful blue bed bags in the bedding bag, and the messengers got the tent and shelter packed up, and we were all beautifully ready to start at crack of dawn on Thursday.
Thursday, 28th January
there we were, all ready to start, and not a sign of our carriers! So we had to unpack the pillows and get the sheets out of the dirty-close-basket, and stay at home another night.
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We got a frantic lot of planting of seedlings down, as if we left them till we got back they would all be dead from overcrowding and no breathing space.
That evening we went up to the island opposite the mission, in a big canoe with six prisoners and a couple of messengers to paddlers, to get some food. There were just thousands of duck and knobnose geese flying around and setting on the millions of pools and swamps all over the islands, but they were absolutely infuriating. They either saw us coming and rose before we were within shooting distance, or else they came flying over till they got just within shot, and then wheeled off out of range, and G.wasn't shooting too well anyhow, so we only brought back for duck (three pink-build-Teal, soft juicy little fellows, and one widow-duck) and one great tough knobnose. Knobnose aren't any good to us, unless they are small ladies, as they are so tough, so we gave them to the messengers; we sent the duck down to the mission, the Lanz and the Breach, as the native clerk had also shot a couple and presented them to us, so we kept them.
VERY crocky! The deepest place came about 3 inches above my knees, and I expected at any minute to feel Great Jaws closing on my legs, but luckily there were none at home just then, or else they were all asleep, or else they didn't think I looked tasty enough, because I got out quite safely the other side.
Friday, 29th January.
The carriers arrived yesterday afternoon, too late to start, so we set off soon after breakfast this morning. All the loads were laid out in a row outside the back door, and all the carriers were laid out in a road near them – 37 carriers – and then all the loads were allotted to them, to make sure that they didn't have a weedy little man carrying a two-man-load fast great hulking man carrying one pot. They are awfully bad at arranging themselves, so it had to be done for them, and each man keeps the same load for the whole tour. They all went off, each with his load tied onto a long pole over his shoulder – in exactly the same principle as the Kandar-sticks of Malaya. Then cameMe, riding regally in the Machila, carried onto people's shoulders, with two cushions, a fly swish and a sunshade, and SO comfy that I kept on dozing all the way. Then came G., on the small horse, who hadn't been written for about a month, so we thought he would be decidedly gay; luckily he seemed to realise he was in for a long walk, so
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only bucked or shied if it was absolutely necessary. Then came Peter, carrying a shooting stick and the blue box, and Chishimba, wearing an old helmet of G.'s with a feather stuck in it, carrying a thermos of tea, and last for, old Musonda on his bike with a great grin on his face.
We went along the road for some way – just a broad Street place with all the trees and stumps removed, but the grass left standing and just the narrow sandy track down the middle to walk along. Every now and then, as I was going along in the modular, we would turn a big corner, and I could see all the long snake of carriers walking along behind us, winding in and out of the long grass along the path, and they looked SO "uncivilised Africa!" They all carried either a spear or an axe or some ferocious weapon, which made them look wilder still, most them had on the minimum of clothing.
We saw no game at all, but there were several battaleur eagles floating about – great fast things with a fine spread of black and white wings, and bright red beaks and legs. We start halfway for a cup o' tea, just outside a village, and the local villagers had built a beautiful little hut of pools and leaves for us to rest in, and they all came out with their wives to greet us and for G.to ask if they had any complaints.
We only did about 9 miles, at the rate of about 3 miles an hour, and we were quite glad to arrive at the camp as it was getting pretty hot by then, and G Dodd's arms were getting very sunburnt. The local people had built a lovely leaf-hut for us there, and a shelter for the messengers, another for the carriers, and another for our boys, so we were able to sit in the cool on our deck chairs until the tent was pitched.
Just after all the carriers arrived and had got the tent up, DOWN came the rain in pockets for, and it went on raining all the afternoon and was quite cold, so we sat in our leaf-hut and played Battle of Jutland and other mad games and had hot buttered toast for tea.
We didn't go out for a walk, or go shooting, in the evening as the grass was so frightfully wet, so we went on playing games till it was time to go and sit by the campfire (still on our deck chairs) and have our sundowners and listen to the people chatting to each other all round the camp. Then we jumped into bed and had tomato soup and duck, wrapped up in our blue bed bags – we were, I mean, not the tomato soup and duck. They are quite heavenly, those bed bags, Mum, and although we each had blankets as well we haven't needed to use them at all, and just put them underneath across the join of the two beds to stop the draft from coming up between them. We have a handsome [mosquito] net, meant for one bed, which Peter has very cleverly [modified]
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to cover both beds, which is very pleasant, and By Jove we did need it, as we could hear mosquitoes jumping about outside in a theory trying to get in.
Saturday, 30th January.
We tried to wake up very early so as to make a good start, as we had rather a longer way to go today, but we didn't succeed in coming to life till about 5.30, when it was just getting light. So we got up, and sat by the campfire to shave and do our hair, (sitting in our deck chairs, of course) and it was a simply heavenly dewy sunshiny morning, with birds and crickets and things singing all over the place. We had poached eggs for breakfast and were off by seven, as the carriers took the tent down and everything was packed while we had breakfast.
I meant to walk in the early morning until it got too hot or I got too tired, and then get into the machila when necessary, but Musonda wouldn't let me walk and she said the grass was much too wet, and of course it was too hot later so I was done out of my energetic intentions we went through the most lovely cool, green shady woods, with smallish, very green trees, and long soft green grass that was very tempting to lie down and roll in, and funny little humpy and-hills covered with thick bush, or with a fat little palm tree sitting on the top. Every now and then we would go across a stretch of plain – flat and bare and dry, with very high, dry, brown grass with lots of seeds that fell into the machila and tickled like anything. Then back into another cool shady piece of Bush, and down would come my sunshade, and off would come my Black Spectacles.
Most of the time the path was too narrow for G.to ride beside me, so he usually went behind as the little horse was a bit slower than my machila-boys, and he would gallop up the flourish of tail, scattering carriers right and left, to show me some tree or bird or something. We've got one volume of our Priest's Book with us, so whenever we see an intriguing bird we look him up, and we look up and see what kind of duck they are when we come in from shooting..
At about midday we got to a village called Sibalabala, (we didn't gather the name of last nights camp) and there was a little leaf-hut already for us, so down we sat in our deck chairs and played Jutland again. The chairs always come along immediately behind us – to deck chairs and their leg rests on to canvas ones – so that they are first into camp with us, as the other carriers may be anything up to half an hour behind us, especially the bath, which is a two-man-load.
We went out shooting in the evening, and had a very good
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evening's sport – eight knobnose and five spur-wing. It was great fun, as we saw a huge flock of spur-wing from the camp, who circled round and then settle down about a mile away. So we walked over there, through the bush, with a local guide and Chishimba and messenger and about three carriers, and got to before the whole flock rose up in a body and flew away.
We watched where they went, and when they had settled, (about a quarter of a mile away) we followed them up and had another poop at them, and stayed in one place promising pool pooped at them when they came over. Every now and then we would walk across to another place, and suddenly somebody would say "Ina !" And we would all squat down and keep very still, in a flock of geese would come squawking overhead, and if you were clever we would get one.
We walked a tremendous long way, but eventually it got too dark to see any more so we returned home with our booty. Spur-wing are absolutely vast, black and white, with a spur rather like a dog's claw on the front of both wings; a very difficult to bring down, as they are such terrific great animals that the pellets either just dance off their feathers, or if they are at fairly close range the pellets go in but don't have the slightest effect; sometimes you could see them stagger and then just fly on as if nothing had happened, then about half a mile further on they would fall, so quite often we might have got one but didn't know it because we never picked it up. It's all right if you get them in the head or neck, or a vital spot in their bodies, but otherwise they are much too hefty to take any notice of the odd spot of lead that might be pumped into them.
Knobnose are not quite so big as spur-wing, and have the most extraordinary great black lump on the top of their noses. It must make them squint horribly, but they never seem to mind, and it doesn't prevent them from swerving very quickly out of the way if they happened to catch sight of the slightest movement. The ladies have no knob, and are smaller and tender than the men, and are just eatable, but the men are no good to us at all, though the natives love them.
When we got home we were greeted with claps and "Bambeni Mukwai" (greeting to Returning Hunter) and Musonda roared with laughter and took away a young lady knobnose to cook for us, and then the rest of them were laid out in a row on their backs, in order of size, by the campfire; we sat in our deck chairs with our drinks and gloated over them, and then we called up the Head Messenger and he got everybody together to come and receive some food. We gave one to him, as he had come with us, one to the headman of the village we were staying at, one to the carriers who had come out with us, and the rest were divided between all the carriers, who were frightfully thrilled with them. There
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was a terrific lot of chatter in camp that night, as compared with the subdued murmur of last night, and we went to sleep long before they had finished talking about it. Chishimba probably went over with our boys every step we had taken and every shot fired, and I don't expect they got to sleep for hours.
Sunday, 31st January.
We went on again at about 6.30 – much the nicest time of day, and we can't imagine why we don't always get up at this time. We went through more lovely cool green bush and more hot dry plains and more grass seeds; we were supposed to be in Impala country, but all we saw was some two-day-old spore of a big herd, and a flock of cows, mistaken by Peter for Impala – he hasn't lived that down yet, and the next time he came out shooting with us G.said to him "do you think you had better come, as you might mistake chickens for duck." Just got poor Peter on the raw, as it is one of the worst things you can imply to a Wemba – that he is bad at game!
We reached the Machili River at about eleven, but I was blowed if I could see any river. It was just a wide valley filled with high tough grass and reeds, and a very occasional deep pool that had escaped being dried up, but in the floods, just after the end of the rains, when all the water is coming down fast, the whole of the valley is water, and sometimes some of the surrounding country as well.
So we camped near the river that night, and the mosquitoes were frightful, the boys said, but we didn't notice them because we were safely tucked into our bed bags. We went out after duck, and got one pink-billed teal, five South African pochard and two pygmy geese – dear little animals with very brightly coloured heads and necks so attractive. It wasn't so much fun as last night, from my point of view, because we just stood on a rise by the river and waited for them to come over, and then we usually missed, instead of having a good walk and having to go to them rather than wait for them to come to us; from G.'s point of view it was better, because they were more difficult as they fly so fast and so high, and also they are more used to us than the old spur-wing and knobnose.
Monday,1st February.
Off again, and it was cooler and greyer and not so glary, but we went through a tremendous lot of river-bits, with brushy rushes on either side, and a very narrow path which made the machila rather awkward, and worse grass seeds than all the other
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days put together. I am a really model cow, going along in the machila. I just lie there, bouncing gently, sometimes looking at the do, sometimes doing nothing, sometimes dozing, but I find it quite impossible to think. In all the hours I have spent in the machila I haven't made a single plan! I'm sure it would be very good for you, Mum, to go in a machila insert sometimes instead of in a train; I wanted to type in it, just so that I could say I had, but I wasn't allowed to as the tripe writer would be rather a lump sitting on me going along, and bouncing, and I think it might jump up and down in front of my eyes rather too. Anyway, I can't be bothered.
Several people came to the camp in the afternoon when we were playing in the leaf-hut, to pay their tax for 1937, so G.had to go all official. Usually when he is on tour he takes a lot of tax, in fact counts it as one of the reasons for going on tour, but on this tour we are going through the Machili as quickly as possible, so he isn't doing much work. He always asks if they have any complaints, or if there are any cases to be taken, and if there are he tells them to take them to him at Sesheke when he gets back, as he hasn't time to take any in the short time we are at each place.
When we were having tea, the boys suddenly came and said there were a whole lot of knobnose sitting on a tree outside, so we got the Blue Box [cine camera] and the gun, and there they were – about 20 fat fellows sitting on a high dead tree, about a hundred yards from the camp. We crept up as close as we could, and they just sat and watched, and then I was about 50 feet away I started taking [cine film] them, and they just sat there and looked at me with them best party smiles on and didn't mind a bit. Then one jumped off and flew away, and immediately all the others looked round and said "oh, are we going?" And one by one they got up and followed the leader.
When about a dozen had gone, and I was still buzzing away, G.suddenly upped with his gun and went poop in my ear, and the blue box jerked a mile and I forgot to take my hand off the trigger in my fright! So will be a lovely swirly bit in one of the films. It seems such a shame to shoot at them when they had posed so beautifully, but we got to, both with the same shot, which wasn't bad, and returned to RTE in Heidi, as I think we got a very good film of them.
The shooting that evening wasn't so good. At first we saw flocks of knobnose all over the place, and they came over well and we got about five. Then they all seemed to suddenly fade away, realising that it wasn't too healthy just there, and we didn't see a single nother bird the whole evening. We were by the river nearly all the time, and that ought to have been thousands of ducks flighting up and down the swamps, but there
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Tuesday, 2nd February.
We left Mulamfu very late, as our mail arrived by messenger from Sesheke, and we read it over breakfast. Several lovely letters from Mum from the boat, with lovely stamps on, posted at Marseille and Portslade, which I answered last week I think. A nice one from Daddy with the most gorgeous poem about Kadwallader Adolf Clay, which is so prime that I'm going to send it on to dead if you don't mind. Can you produce a rival, Dad!? Oh, I'm sorry, it won't come with this portmanteau, as it has been packed, and so I see, has Mum's letter, so I'm afraid I can't remember if there was anything to answer in it. If there was, I expect I answered it last week. (You see, we're going this afternoon and all the carriers have gone)
We read them over our poached eggs, and I read them all over again in the machila. None from Peter – have you died, old boy? We haven't heard from you for six weeks.
It started to rain quite heavily, so I had to have the same canvas sides of the cover of the machila letdown, so I could not see out. I suddenly felt us going rather slowly and gingerly down a slope, and I looked out to see a raging torrent in front of us. However the carriers were very natty with their feet, and it only came about to their knees, so we got across all right. They had a difficult time getting me up the other side as it was rather steep, so I suggested that I should get out, but they were just getting on well and couldn't stop and wouldn't hear of me getting out.
Well, that was the Machili River – 10 yards wide, 2 feet deep – and now today when we go back again we have got to go across in the canoe as somebody started to go across yesterday and the water came over their head!
About half an hour after that, I heard the noise of a car, and presently a car stopped on the road about 50 yards away, parallel with the path we were on. I went across to it, and found inside Me 'usbind, Mr Robey, and a lion. Mr Robey was the assistant Veterinary Officer dealing with this aero-pneumonia campaign, and the lion was shot by Mr Robey last night! It was quite a big one, and it was shoved into the trunk-part of his Chevrolet box-body, with its great shaggy haired under the front part of the truck, and its huge plobby paws hanging over the edge, and it was SO thrilling to be driving along in the front of the car, then look out of the back window and see a Lion lying there curled up!
Mr Robey drove us the last 2 miles or so to the
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Martin's house, and there I waited for the blue box to arrive as they wanted to take the line away and skin him before the odour got too pungent! However, the carriers had got left some way behind, so we went indoors, as it was raining, and when the blue box arrived G.took it with him to Robey's place where they disgorged the lion, and he said he got quite a good film of it, with a close-up of its head. The Martin's have got the most intriguing house. I told you about them when they came down to Sesheke – he is the Assistant Conservators of Forests, and "does" all the forests of this District, seeing that they are preserved from burning and illegal cutting, and touring the District mapping and exploring and looking after it. She is the one who came out here to see her brother, and married "J.D." after a fortnight's acquaintance exhibition mark she is terribly sweet and we had great fun together while G.and J.D.did business.
They designed and built the house themselves, and it is most awfully attractive. It is very high – with two which stories, standing on a rise overlooking the valley of the river, and surrounded by trees except in the front, where there is a lovely view across the valley to the forest the other side. It has a thatched roof and no windows. All the rooms just have half a wall, and the whole of the top of where the wall ought to be is just open – like you would have for a balcony at home, only it is in all the rooms. There is no mosquito netting, or glass, or anything, so it is lovely and cool and light and airy, but of course the disadvantage is that the mosquitoes do come in terribly, and we have been awfully bitten all the time, except in bed under our green mosquito net. The front door has mosquito netting on it but as the length of open wall on either side is quite open to the air, I shouldn't think it does much good. The front door leads into a huge room that goes right up to the roof, so to speak, which is dining room. There is a door leading out into the back part, and from the back veranda one goes up wooden steps (rather steep and terrifying with a rope banister) and there is a wooden gallery (with NO EDGE!) Across the top connecting the bedroom at one side and the lovely big sitting-room at the other.
The office is under the sitting room, on the left of the hall, and there is a little bedroom at the back of it, which they are using just now as they very nobly let us sleep in the bedroom. Under the bedroom, on the right-hand side, is a dressing room and a bathroom – but they haven't got H.and C.laid on like we have! They haven't got very much furniture, but what there is is almost new and very nice, and they haven't any pictures or ornaments at all, but it is the kind of house that fripperies don't suit, so
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it doesn't matter, and anyway I think it would be rather difficult to hang pictures on a wall-less wall! Elizabeth has done most of the painting of it herself – the doors etc., and has made some very nice cushion covers. They don't need curtains, except in the bathroom, as the ain't no windows. There are no ceilings – you just look straight up into the thatch, which is rather amusing, but it is rather inclined to collect cobwebs, and then bats get caught in the cobwebs and wait till you are underneath and then drop on your head. (That has not actually happen, but it quite easily might!)
Well, when they all got came back from dealing with the lion (we weren't allowed to go with them because the wasn't room in the car and the land smelt so) we had lunch, and then went to sleep for the afternoon, and went out shooting in the evening. Oh, no sorry, before we went out shooting they had a little shooting practice from the sitting room. There were two targets and a wooden line, and we also threw beer bottles down to shoot at. There was J.D., Robey, G., Elizabeth, and Me, and they made us have a try. With her first shot with the revolver, Elizabeth got a bottle and smashed it to smithereens – and after that she didn't hit anything! I got a bullet into the line just outside the bull's-eye on the target with a little .22 rifle of Robey's, but I wouldn't try with the shotgun or big rifles because they were so hulking and heavy and looked as though they kicked so.
Then we all went out shooting, and Robey lent me the little .22, but it was so annoying, there was not a single bird the whole evening for me to shoot; my blood was roused and I was just longing to poop off at things – any old thing – and nothing would sit still on a tree for me to shoot at. We went down to a bend in the river, and the three guns stood in a row at different points, with their respective wives sitting on shooting sticks behind them (Robey hasn't got one so he had a boy sitting on the ground instead) and waited for the birds to come over. Boys had been sent up and down the river to drive the birds to us, but we had singularly poor sport, as very few came over. The total bag was five pygmy geese, one fulvous tree-duck, and one cormorant. They had an annoying habit of flying down the river as long as it went straight, but as soon as they came to our bend they flew over land, and cut off a large corner. It was most unorthodox of them, because pygmy geese are supposed to always follow the river, every twist and turn of it, and they usually fly very low down close to it, for about 50 yards, then settled till they are disturbed again, when they fly about another 50 yards and settle again.
Wednesday, 3rd February.
We had PEARS for breakfast, lunch, tea and dinner, and
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At any other moment of the day when we happened to catch sight of them. They had got them up from a fruit farm in the Transvaal – and I got the address! They were delicious, so juicy, and not a bit cotton-woolly like some pairs are.
Elizabeth and I went down to her kitchen garden and pottered about planting beans, picking tomatoes, cutting off their shoots, looking at lettuces, carrots, radishes, marrows, leaks and cucumbers and all the other marvellous things she has managed to grow there. She has some very fine carrots, which I'm very jealous of as ours simply WILL NOT grow at home, and tomatoes as well, and she has rows and rows of Fat Green Lettuces with little curly hearts, and we picked a lot of them and chew them at odd moments during the day.
They have no garden roundhouse – just the forest and grass and sand – but she has a bed of lovely white zinnias down at her garden which she picks for the house, and she is thinking of sowing a lot of them just loose in the grass, as they grow awfully well wild and they would look lovely scattered about round the house. If she had a garden it would have to be a very fine, resplendent one, beautifully laid out and beautifully kept up, and she don't start! Also they go out on tour so much that she wouldn't be able to take the care of it that it would need. Apache little garden, with little's with the beds of little twiddly flowers dotted about would look ridiculous with this house, so I think she's very wise not to start to after they come back from leave anyway – they are going on leave in May probably, so we might see them at home which would be great fun. I'd love you to meet Elizabeth as she is such fun and so nice, and we got on like a house on fire straightaway, and have had such amusing waffles since we've been here.
G. and J.D. were very busy all day in the office, making Forest Laws, so we didn't see much of them, but in the evening we all went out shooting again by the river. They had very poor sport, only getting too dark and too pygmy geese, and the two duck they never found as they fell in the river. I had my .22, so Chishimba and I went off away from them in search of birds sitting on trees, and I loosed off about 12 shots at various cormorants and hawks, and missed them all of course. BUT I saw a reed-buck. So I really had much better sport than they did.
Thursday, 4th February
We all went in Robey's car to Mulabezi to have a look at the forest they are cutting now, and spent most of the day there. The Martins have got a car, but they ran into a
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stump or something and smashed the front axle to pieces, on Christmas eve, so the car is in Livingstone being mended. The road from here to Mulobezi – about 6 miles – goes through thick bush, and consists of just the double-track in the sand between very high thick grass; it must be awful in wet weather, but it was really pretty good that day.
Mulobezi is a most godforsaken little place. It is just about clearing out of the bush, with little tin houses dotted about with little tin roofs, each with a hopeful little garden and a little garden gate. There are about a hundred and 20 quite people there, including a large number of children, and everybody except about 12 Dutch, working for the Zambezi Sawmills either at the mill itself, or else in the forest they are cutting for the mill.
The Zambezi sawmills provides the whole of South Africa with railway sleepers, made out of a special tree called Mukushi, and they are gradually cutting down all theMukushi forests in the country. They are cutting in the Lonze Forest just now, which is between Mulobezi and the border of Sesheke and Livingstone Districts, and when they finished cutting that they will probably come across into Sesheke, which will be a Good Thing for Sesheke.
First we went to the main office (a little tin hut under a tree) and they went and had a chat with the manager, Mr Kraus, while Elizabeth and I went and called on Mrs Kraus, a typical "Dutch vrouw" with three small children and dozens of cats and kittens dashing about the house. Mrs Bennett came in, as she comes into Mulobezi from their store (about 2 miles out) every day to teach 15 squalling children at the school house. She asked after little Bessie Breach, who had had a boil on her nose last time I saw her, and said she hoped she'd be able to come down to Sesheke to see us again soon.
Next we went along to the mill, about a quarter of a mile away, and we could have just stayed there for hours watching everything, it was also fascinating, like in a factory. The logs are brought down from the forest by a logging train, and they are put onto a lovely little trolley with two men sitting on it. The men stick grippers into the log and the trolley rushes along to the saw and one side is sawn off; the trolley rushes way again where a gang of men are standing, and they turn the log over and the grippers are stuck in again; trolley rushes back to the saw and another side is sawn off. This happens three times, and then the log is rolled off, a beautiful, evenly sawn, four sided railway sleeper, and is taken to a tank of arsenic to be soaked for a week to prevent white and seating it; it is then put on a truck and taken to Livingstone to be sent out as a proper railway sleeper for the S.A.R.
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all the bits they saw off and twisted, because they are used as parquet flooring, if they are good enough, and if not they are used for fuel for the train that pulls the trucks.
Then we got onto a little jig (a little trolley on the railway) were pushed along the railway towards the Lonze Forest. Presently the line went downhill, so we had a lovely run down; we knew there was meant to be a train coming out from the forest, and poor Elizabeth felt very nervous as we went flying round a huge long blind corner, as she thought that at any moment we would come round a bend and run slap into the engine; luckily I didn't think of that till afterwards! However, we were lucky, and as we're going along a straight bit towards a corner we suddenly heard the passing of steam, and so we lept off and they lifted the jigger of the line onto the side, and presently along came the old puffy engine with its long string of trucks filled with red logs. I think I got rather a good film of it, as I was almost underneath it and pretty close.
We leapt on again, and after we had gone about 5 miles, in blazing sun, we came to the end of the railway, in the depth of thick forest and Greenbush. Everywhere were dead trees and huge branches lying about rotting, as they only use the trunks for the mill, and the danger is that these terrific masses of dry deadwood are very liable to catch fire, and would do a tremendous lot of damage, so they have to have a very careful lookout for fires and smoke.
At the place where we stopped the way was blocked by a string of trucks standing there being loaded with logs, and it was such fun watching them loading. I got quite a good film of about 10 men heaving a huge log up the runway into a truck, and I do wish I could photograph the noise, because they were all shouting and charting in time to encourage themselves, with one man dancing about random yelling and encouraging them, who was the sort of leader of the chanting. Then the cheer when they finally got it up!
We went for a long walk through the forest, picking our way through the thick undergrowth, over logs and trees, round great holes where the roots of been dug up, it set, and saw one or two people chopping, but I couldn't get a photo, and it was quite dull. We went for miles and miles, to a part of the forest where they are clearing away all the trees and everything preparatory to extending the railway line, in hopes of seeing them hauling logs with oxen, but they had finished for the day, so we went back to the loading place and had a huge picnic lunch with hard-boiled eggs and lettuce and beer.
As luck would have it, just as we had finished, a train came along to take away the trucks that are just being loaded, so instead of going back to Mulobezi on the jigger, in the glaring
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sun, we went back on the engine, which was much quicker and very noisy and great fun. Then we jumped into the car again and swished off home.
They went out shooting in the evening, but Elizabeth and I didn't go with them and went off by ourselves with the .22 to try and shoot something for dinner as we knew J.D.and G. wouldn't be able to. I got the tail of one bird, but it didn't seem to notice it unfortunately and just hopped onto another branch serve course I missed it. J.D. and G. got to widow duck and to pygmy geese.
Well, that's all for now, as G. is absolutely champing to be off so that we can get across the river before it gets dark. The man he wanted to see did arrive after all, so it was worth staying on those extra two days and Casey came, and we are off now on our homeward journey.
I also wish to stop because G. is making VERY rude remarks about this portmanteau, and if he goes on much longer I shall not write another and I will make him do ALL the letters while I sit and do nothing all day! I know it's more of a trunk than a portmanteau, but I bet he couldn't write a better one himself.
We hope to start for Mongu next week, and it will be great fun meeting the P.C. and everybody, and we will probably be able to find out if we are going to Mankoya or not. Then directly we get back from Mongu at the end of March I will have to think about packing to come HOME !! It will be such fun being home again, but it will NOT be fun leaving here. However, we try not to think of that, and it's best really we think, that I should come home.
To be continued in Our Next,
Gallons of love to everybody,
From
US.
Sesheke,
N.R.
PORTMANTEAU 017.
16th February, 1937.
Darling Everybody,
We've had such a nice week this week, and here we are back home once more, and I can at last enjoy writing a portmanteau again on my own beautiful shiny black beetle, instead of having to use that revolting excrescence that dignify is itself by the name of the Office Typewriter.
I left off at Portmanteau 16 at Thursday 4th, I think, the day we've went to Mulobezi, so I'll go on from there in the right order.
Friday 5th February.
I had a nice free morning as G. and J.D. were very busy making Forest Laws all day, so Elizabeth and I wandered down to her garden again and chose the things we thought we would like to eat for lunch, and pulled up a lot of fat lettuces and a carrot or two, it set except. It's such a fine garden, and so beautifully kept, and I wish our things would grow so well.
They went off shooting some way down the river, so Musonda and I went out with my little point to 2, and I actually shot Two Birds! Not with one stone, though. One I shot plum through his neck so that heat we picked him up into halves, and the other I got in the body. They were so tiny, poor little fellows, that they couldn't help being killed, but I was very proud of myself as they were the first birds I'd ever shot. I don't think I really want to shoot any more though!
I told you about the house being so hard without any mosquito netting, but I couldn't tell you about the mosquitoes themselves I was I was writing the last letter in their house and I was rather inclined to leave letters lying about! The mosquitoes were quite ghastly, and although we wore mosquito boots they got through our close and up our sleeves and down our necks, and I was constantly wrapping my frock round my knees hopefully, but it didn't make any difference. They didn't seem to attack the Martins, unless they had just got so used to them that they didn't notice them anymore.
We used to come in from shooting when it was too dark to go on, but after a bath and change we would go up to the sittingroom for sundowners; at home we usually son down till about 7.30, and then have dinner, usually pretty punctually, but at the Martins we just sat and sat and sat and went on sitting, getting sleepier and sleepier, while Martin had another drink, and then another drink, until about 9.30, when he called for dinner. One night we didn't go down to dinner till
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five minutes to ten! The result was we didn't get out of dinner till about a quarter to eleven, and then had to sit around and have coffee and talk a bit and try not to go to sleep, so we didn't get to bed till close on twelve. Having been used to a punctual dinner at 7.30-ish, and in bed by 9.30 at the latest, every night for the last three months, it was a bit difficult to get used to at first!
Nothing in particular happened on Saturday – just the usual letters and shooting in the evening, at which I got nothing, and they got three pheasants, three pygmy geese and one cormorant.
Sunday, 7th February.
The Efficient Secretary typed their Forest Laws for them, so that G. can bring some copies of them back here with him.
A whole heap of people came out from Mulobezi for sundowners and dinner. There was one called Sam Weller, who was a sundowner in Australia for three years, in Victoria, N.S.W. and Queensland, just walking about getting jobs here and there when he could, and living on what he shot, which was mostly parrots. So we discussed Sydney, etc., though he had seen it from rather a different point of view from us, as he had lived in a tent on Manly Beach for a month or more! Then he went on to New Zealand, where he lived on the edge of Lake Taupo for some time, living by the fish he caught. He was also in the B.S.A. Police for a time, and has now got a wretched job in the sawmills – sitting on a log in the forest, checking the cutters as they come to and from their work! He's one of those people who can never settle down to one job for long, and is always longing to be off somewhere else, trying something else, and Elizabeth says they get awfully cross with him sometimes for not trying for better things, as you could do much better than his present job if he tried.
Monday, 8th February.
We had a swarm of bees in the dressing room, and as the whole house is open to the wide world, they filled the entire conglomeration for about half an hour, and finally settle down in a tree outside, which is a great comfort, and will be very nice for them later, when they can get honey from them.
Le Roux arrived in the afternoon. He is an Experimental Research Officer in the Veterinary Department and he has come up here to see how Robey is getting on with his cattle inoculation against Pleuro-pneumonia. He is a Dutch South African, but didn't seem a bit like one and was most amusing and had a funny high giggly laugh which always made us laugh
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too. He and Robey came to dinner and told us in most amusing stories about adventures they had had.
Robey was chased by a rhino in his car the other day! He had stopped to let the car cool down after a long drive in the middle of the thick bit of forest, when the messenger sitting in the truck-parked at the back suddenly shouted out what he thought was the word for a sable; he looked round but didn't see it anywhere, so he got into the car started off in a leisurely manner, when the messenger again shouted, and added "it's coming". He couldn't see out at the back because of the truck, but he thought it very odd that the messenger should get so excited about a sable, and he was even more surprised when the messages started scrambling from the truck-part into the body of the car, shouting all the while.
Then suddenly he saw this old rhino, galloping full speed ahead among the trees parallel with the road, dodging the trees as if he was in for bending-race. Roby put on speed, but the rhino kept up marvellously, and was still neck-to neck after about half a mile of 30 m.p.h., though he never tried to come for the car or anything. He probably heard it but couldn't discover whereabouts it was as it was moving along all the time; however, he eventually got tired and dropped behind and disappeared. But if he had caught Robey or the car when it was standing still at the beginning, he would have made a nasty mess.
Tuesday, 9th February.
We started off from the Martins at about 3.30, as soon as I had finished portmanteau 16, and walked the 2 miles down to Robey's house for tea before we started off for our first camp on the way home. The carriers and the horse had all gone down in the morning, so that they could get across the river in the canoe without undue Harry; the horse had swum across, with all the carriers beating the water all round with paddles to keep the crocs away, as a man and a donkey had been taken by a croc there in the last week.
We went across the river in this perilous little canoe, at a place where the carriers had been not quite knee-deep when we came over last week! The horse and the machila were waiting for us, and we had quite a short journey to our first camp, outside the village of Mulamfu. Immediately we arrived we heard of pheasant going"crrrrr-ick" just outside the camp, so we couldn't resist it and had a fine chase, and found several, eventually returning to camp with one.
When we got back to camp we found our mail had arrived for us from Sesheke, with a little short letter from Mum, written the day you sailed and sent by sea, with "a hostage" inside it in the shape of a hanky; a little letter from Dad with a beautiful portrait of Himself with a Snitch, thanking for our Christmas
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Present of hankies. We also got one from Duckie, who is ski-ing in Switzerland with a party, saying that she is thrilled to be a god-mother (I put dog-mother by mistake) and is commencing on the Willie boots at once.
Wednesday, 10th February.
We went on to the next place, which I don't know the name of, and it was very hot, with one or two showers. We went out shooting over the river-bed in the evening to a place where we had got one or two pygmy geese and duck last time, but not a bird passed over and we didn't see a thing all the evening, for I think the first time on this tour.
Thursday, 11th February.
We actually managed to get up at Sparrow-squawk – i.e. .5.15 a.m. – which made quite a big difference to the journey as it was lovely and fresh and cool at first and I thought What a nice day it's going to be. Then at about 9 o'clock DOWN came the rain, and it went on coming down till late in the afternoon. We got into camp at Sibalabala at about 10.30, and G.was of course absolutely soaked. I was fairly dry, as the side curtains of the machila were down, but the trouble was that the rain came in from the front and trickle down the canvas of the machila into the middle, so that by the end of the ride I was lying in a pool of water! We got straight into our bed bags when the tent was up and got dry and warm before lunch.
The afternoon was spent making crossword puzzles for each other and then doing them, and in the evening we went out after spur-wing and knobnose, as this was the place where we had such a very good day on the way out. We didn't see such huge flocks this time, and had to walk much further to find any, but we managed to get seven spur-wing, three knobnose and two pheasants altogether.
On Friday we went on early again, and saw the spoor several roan, and also some hartebeest, but didn't see the actual animals which was a pity. We have had rather bad luck over game, as usually yesterday's road is crammed with Impala, and we didn't see any, though quite a lot of spoor.
Saturday, 13th February.
We started off in the dry, but we hadn't been going more than half and hour when the rain came down again, and went on and on and on, and didn't stop once all day, and apparently we had two and a half inches Sesheke that day! We arrived home at about 11, and all the last part the carriers sang and chanted to themselves because it was the last bit of their journey, and were very cheery although they were sodden to the
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marrow bones. We had a hot bath and Bovril when we got in, and it was so funny being in the house again even after this short time away.
But Tragedy had stalked through the Boma while we were away. The vegetable garden that Musonda had dug and planted and cared for so tenderly is now a wilderness of long thick grass, with not a sign of a vegetable, except here and there and overgrown radish; this is because the garden-boy we left behind decided that he hadn't been told to do any work, therefore he would not do any work, so he calmly took a holiday and went off to his village. Shimeo (who we left behind) went to him and told him to come and do some work, but he wouldn't, so Shimeo reported him to the clerk, who also told him to come and do some work, but still he wouldn't, so they couldn't do anything but wait for G. to come back.
When G. had him into the office, he asked him if he had done any work, so the boy said yes, he had watered every night. So G.turn to the clerk and said how much rain have you had while we've been away? Clark said nearly every day! Then the boy said that he had dug in the vegetable garden and taken out all the big weeds, but he thought he had better not dig too much in Casey took out the wrong things. That's absolutely nonsensical, because he has been digging in the garden almost ever since we arrived!
So G. paid him his wages (10/-), and then sent him round to the clerk to pay his 1937 tax - 7/6 - so he went away with only2/6 wages as a reward for his energies!
The flowers are in fine fettle though, as Shimeo managed to keep them more or less ship-shape. The seniors along the sitting wall absolutely vast, and falling over with the weight of themselves, and have some marvellous flowers on. The sunflowers on the left-hand side of the door are all out to, and are very tall. Marigolds in the stone binned by the orange trees are very tall and have several flowers, mostly bright yellow, with only one or two orange ones; G. is of course pleased, but I far prefer the orange ones to the yellow ones – I think the yellow are a bit insipid-looking, or is it dissipated-looking?
The zinnia and dahlia seeds that we planted just before we left are now crowding around waiting to be transplanted, and some of them are looking definitely sorry for themselves, they have grown so big. The creeper by the side of the house that we thought was golden shower has not flowed yet, but it has got right up to the top string and is starting to wind its way down again! It has thick leaves and about three stalks come from each plant, the stalk has about a dozen lateral stalks, each one climbing up the same bit string, so there is a thorough model.
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Oh I must tell you, I've just looked out of the window and I can see some people cutting the grass on the aerodrome. There are about 20 of them, I should think, and each around with a long stick with a sharp thing on the end; 19 of them are standing still, one of them is vaguely waving his stick from side to side through the grass, sending a spray of grass up each side of him and each stroke. There, he stopped now, and another has started, and everybody else is resting and watching him. Oh, there comes a messenger, and they have all started vigourously cutting while he's standing there talking to one of them. He's turned his back now strolling away; seven of them still cutting – I suppose they haven't seen that he isn't looking any more. Oh, theyARE so funny, these people!
Sunday, 14th February.
Mail-day again – how nice, just arriving back in time for it like this. Yesterday we found a whole lot of parcels waiting for us, clothes for Me sent out by Mummy, and I'll tell you all about them in my other letter Mummy, thank you ever so much for taking so much trouble over them for me, and they are lovely.
In the mail, we had January 19th from Mummy, about the things she had bought, and some very helpful advice; we're so glad you had David to the Beagle Ball and that you liked him so much – don't you think you'd make a good godfather? Also January 24 telling us about Ralph's 'flu. For him, and it's such a pulling-down sort of illness that I shouldn't think Glasgow is at all pleasant pick-me-up place. Also a little short of January 30 about the chiffon frock, who is absolutely lovely and G. is so thrilled with it he wants me to put it on the whole time, so by the time we get to Mongu it will be quite worn out!
Then there was one from Mum – January 10th – written on board the Maloja and sent from Gibraltar; we have had several since then of course before we got this, which you sent from Port Said, which got here quicker.
We also got an answer from the Dr in Livingstone, in answer to my question about whether it is best to stay here or come home. I knew what his answer would be, but perhaps you would like to hear his views. "I disapprove of having babies 'calmly in your own home' a hospital or nursing home is the only proper place. Climatically it doesn't matter whether he is born here or in England – he will have to live here anyway. The only point against having it here is that you are Sesheke but could I not get there in less than four days? Travelling shortly before the baby arrives is a great mistake, and if the infant came early might not the ship's doctor be an even worse evil than the M.O. at Livingstone! "
As we got a wire from Daddy by the same mail, saying that he had made enquiries at the union Castle office, who had said
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That it was impossible to get a birth before the middle of May at the earliest unless we had booked already, I'm afraid we decided that it would be best to stay here after all. In fact, when I read the one I said to myself "HOORAY, that settles it!" And I'm sorry to say that I'm very glad! I wasn't looking forward a bit to leaving G. for all that long time, or to that horrible journey down to the Cape, and the long, lonely voyage home all by myself, or the feeling that I didn't want to meet people at home, which I'm sure I would get, and so on. So I have sent wires to you all to cancel the first were saying I was coming home, to say I'm not after all.
It would have been lovely to be at home, as I have said before, but I wasn't looking forward to going at all, and this plan is really much the sensible list and simplest for all concerned. If you could send "the splendid nurse" out, so that she arrives about the beginning or middle of May, she could escort me down to Livingstone at the beginning of June (which is when the doctor wants me there) and we could either stay with friends or at the Fairmont hotel till it's time to jump into the hospital. The Lanz says that it's quite usual to have one's own nursing hospital, Mummy, so your advice was quite right, and I needn't be there more than three weeks anyway, and then come roaring back here, plus Robin, to a house beautifully got ready by G. He will be able to get local leave to come down for the actual Ceremony of Having Robin.
I think we are going to stay here, and G. has a hunch we are. We wouldn't mind staying a bit, a) because it would be such a ball moving at that time, b) because it is going to be a very interesting district next year from the work point of view, with sawmills, cattle sector, andc) because of the Lanz being so handy, and so nice, and having such an interesting Robin already it we such a shame if she was never to see the result of her efforts! However, we will be seeing Poole soon, and I will endeavour to Fascinate him (with 60-inch waistline to!) Into sending us where we want to go!
Well, to get back to Sunday and the mail. We got a whole heap of Country Lives, Fields, Punches, etc., and another big bunch of Clothes from Mummy, which are all so nice, and I am glad you sent that Chiffon by air or it wouldn't have arrived in time and the expense was worth it. We hope to leave by barge on Saturday, or Monday at the very latest.
In the evening we walked down to see the Lanz, and she was SO pleased to see us, and thought that Robin had grown considerably, as he was invisible when we went away and now he definitely shows! Apparently neither she nor Mrs Monteverdi have been very well, so you see what a bad effect are going away has on people!
And Now to tell you the Great Excitement.
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we were sitting in the sitting room after dinner, and I was quite harmlessly reading Julius Caesar, when Suddenly Robin Jumped!! It was such a small jump that I didn't think it could be at first, but he did it several times, and we could Feel him Jumping like anything! So the next day I thought there was something wrong and sent for the Lanz, and the result is that she thinks where Twinning !!
She can't tell for about six weeks or more yet, but she thinks there is quite a chance of it. Can't we just 2 to cover for words, and isn't it Just the sort of thing We WOULD do! Is all very well for you to say, Mummy, that we were the most impudent couple for calmly announcing, two months after we were married, that we were going to have a baby, but we thought you'd better realise just how impudent we really can be when we try! Don't fall off your chairs with laughing, because we haven't stopped laughing every time we've thought about it, and it IS funny, isn't it.
It WOULD be such fun to have twins, and were so thrilled about it and DO so hope it is, but of course we can't be sure, and I'm only telling you because you followed Robin right from the very beginning, so it wouldn't be fair on David if his history wasn't followed from the very beginning to – as of course if it IS twins, the other will be called David. David Arden clay. If it's both girls, we thought Penelope Ella clay and Julia St Clair clay. I know Penelope Ella is not too good, but it's better than Julia Ella which makes you say Julia Ella, and she will never be called them both together. What does everybody else think? We think it rather simplifies matters if it is twins, as it saves a lot of argument about names, doesn't it. If it isn't, have you given your views yet on the list we sent you? As you see, we are now rather favouring Julia and Penelope.
Oh, it IS such fun, and we are both SO hoping it will be twins. You needn't warn the nurse, though Mummy, and we will of course let you know as soon as we do if it REALLY is twins, because then we'll need double rations of all the clothes at such a! Won't it be fun to have two little cots side-by-side!
How clever of you to have got splendid nurse, and I am sure she WILL be splendid if both you and Mrs Wade have approved of her. You will let us know if she's definitely booked, and when she's sailing, and a bit about what she's like, and her name and age is set won't you, and then we could perhaps write to her at the Post Restante, Livingstone, to catch her when she arrives there, telling her about aeroplanes etc.
So here we are, so excited over "them" instead of "he or she", and we keep laughing and gloating about them and think-
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In how marvellous it is and how clever we are. I've been in bed just for yesterday and today to recover from the excitement and Miss Lanz thinks it will be all right for me to go on Saturday. It will be so annoying if I can't, but I expect I will be able to – anyway if not Saturday, I'll be all right by Monday.
So I'm writing this in bed, and Miss Breach has just been up to tea, dear little soul, and Mr Reade thinks he is going to die next year, the silly old chap, why doesn't he give himself three more years, like Dad does – after all he's only 58, but he is apparently under the impression that he is in a very bad state of health and it's only a question of months. Poor old feller, it must be buried pressing to be always thinking you're going to die soon, and at the tender age of 58 too.
G. has gone to the island opposite the mission to see if he can score a duck or two. He went out last night to the pools beyond the aerodrome, and wasn't a sign, but he ought to be more lucky on the island as last time we went there the whole place was seething with them.
Well, I think that's all. Chief is still alive, but is rather thin and miserable looking. We don't allow him in the house still because of that horrid bleeding ear of his, so we don't see very much of him as he has got used to being away on his own while we've been out on tour. We heard that our little fox terrier puppy left Bulawayo for Livingstone on yesterday's train, so he ought to be here any day now!
Lots of love, everybody, and let's hope it really is Twins.
From
US.
Written on the barge going up the Zambezi from Sesheke to Mongu. Betty was a month short of her 20th birthday and had been married for five months. She was five months pregnant.
PORTMANTEAU 018
[8 pages] Sesheke,
N. Rhodesia.
27th February, 1937.
Darling everybody,
I'm going to try and do this portmanteau in bits, when we are on land, as doing it in the barge is rather difficult. It's now Saturday, and we have been going since Monday evening, and we have just about a fortnight more to go, before we get to Mungo. We haven't had a mail since we left, as we have got just a weeks start on it, but they say we might get one roundabout Tuesday or Wednesday, and we probably get down-one tomorrow or the next day. So I haven't anything to answer in your letters.
I told you a bit about Merry, didn't I, but I don't think I said very much. He is a smooth-had Fox-terrier, which might interest you, Daddy, when we send you photos of him later, I think he has a pedigree, but of course he isn't anything to write to crafts about but he's not at all a bad little dog and of course he is SO adorable that that doesn't matter. He's got a black face and head, with a neat V-neck parting right in the middle, and a round black smudge on his neck just below one side of the V. He has 10 eyebrows and cheeks, and a white gin. He has a pitch black little tale, and otherwise he is quite white, except that since writing to you last he has developed some faint black spots all down his back, and he has a beautiful speckled tum.
He is three months old, and is such a brave little feller, dashing about by himself in long thick grass, and digging little holes all over the place, and chasing big fat Beatles etc.; he just loves a rough-house, and never minds however brutal we are to him, and he's just like Ready the way you can pick him up by any part of him without his making them sound, even when we hold him upside down by all four feet together in one hand!
But withal he is so good in the barge, after the first excitement of getting in and starting, and a small rough-'s house to start off with, he goes and lies under our chairs and we don't hear another sound till it's time for another game. His greatest delight is a fly-switch, and he has the most marvellous games with it, being swung into the air by his teeth, and swished up and down and rolled over and over, and he's always ready for more.
He is quite marvellous at night to, sleeping in his box by the head of my bed, and never squeaks all scrabbles; we have to keep the door of his box shut, and Casey wanders out and gets snapped up by a hyena, but we don't really need to as last night when we were looking for him to put him to
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bed, we at last found him fast asleep in bed already. He has already learnt his name, and comes rushing to it, and to a whistle, and he also knows "NO", which I'm afraid still has to be used rather a lot. But he is very intelligent, and I think he will soon learn everything we want teaching. Now all we want is half a dozen more like him, and if they are all as "us-ish" as Mary is, we WILL be the happiest family in the world – plus Robin to crown everything! ["Robin" turned out to be Gill]
We followed the parent-birds example in having the same birthday, and meeting on board ship, so we don't see why we shouldn't follow both lots of parents excellent example of conjugal bliss, and we think we are doing it very well indeed – much better than anybody has ever done anything before!
Well, you probably want to know something about the journey so far. On Monday Peter and I packed the blue suitcase (with all its African-tour labels, and "B.C." cheekily sitting in the middle of all those remnants of spinster hood) with boiled shirt fronts and black ties and coats and weskits, and Ladies' Natty Frockings of a new and beautiful description and Silk Stockings and two of the eight handbags and Silver Shoes and Curling Pins (sez you) and other symbols of civilisation. Meanwhile G. got everything done in the office, and got everything beautifully cleared up.
In the afternoon the paddlers arrived to take the things down to the barges, and they were very late, but G. said that he wasn't going to have this business of "trying it on" and we would Going to Start That Evening, even if they had to paddle till midnight to get us to the camp. They weren't expecting that, as they thought if they arrived too late to start they could "get away with it" and have a rest till the next day, so mutually there realised he meant business they got down to it and of course took half the time to pack the barges that they said they would, and off we went.
(It is now 6.30 and beginning to get dark, so I won't be able to go on much longer tonight. The big fire has just been lit outside the tent, and I am sitting in a deck chair outside with the trite write-up on my knee, and between me and the tripe writer are two people – Robin and Merry! He asked to come up, and though it is rather uncomfortable typing without any elbow support, I just couldn't resist those vast saucer-eyes, and he's lying very quietly, with his chin resting and bouncing up and down on my right arm! Typing under rather awkward conditions! G. is out shooting, but as he was going a long way in the bushes very thick we decided that it would be better for Mary and me to stay behind; he has gone after buck, as the villagers say there are Impala and Puku here. We have just heard about six shots, and Musonda says they'll have to walk all night to follow it up!) Good night, too dark now.
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Tuesday, 2nd March, 1937
a mail-barge came down yesterday morning at crack of dawn, just as we were thinking of getting up, and I'm sorry to say I didn't have time to write to you, and as I had only just written these last two pages of this portmanteau I didn't think it was worth sending it off like that, so didn't write at all. I hope you didn't mind missing one week like that, and didn't get married or anything, and that you realised it was rather difficult to know when the barge was coming. We got your wire saying you'd got the nurse and arranged for her to come out, and you will have got our reply by now; you didn't say if it was the Griffin one or not, so I can't start asking people to look after her in Cape Town until I know what her name is!
Well, as I was saying, on wet Monday evening we went off at about 3.30. It is quite amazing how the river has come up since we went to the Machili, just in those 10 days it had come right up to the bank, when before it was about 10 feet below the top of it, and has spread over the plane full about hundred and 50 yards or so of running water and marshy ground. The path we used to walk down to the bank by is raised above the surrounding ground, so it was like a causeway running down to within about 50 yards of the original river-bank – but we couldn't get to the gum trees standing at the end of the path on arise, as the was a strip of water in between which we couldn't cross.
As we passed the mission, the Montes, Lily Hippo and Miss Lanz were all standing on the bank to wave to us and wish us Bong Voyage, which was rather sweet of them. We did quite a short journey to the first camp – only about an hour – and camped at a simply gorgeous place calledSoka (in other words, the camp size was about a quarter of a mile from the village called Soka, and the inhabitants of Soka had cleared it and built the leaf-huts and shelters and fences already.)
It was high up from the river and directly above it, with the most marvellous view between the surviving branches of a huge tree, right across the broad stretch of river the clumps of little islands the far side. Behind it are the local Mili-fields, but behind those again are nice big trees, leafy and green and shady and so much nicer than ours at Sesheke. The whole place was so much lovelier, and would make such a heavenly place for a Boma, that we Wondered round looking at it from every seat angle with a view to putting the Boma there if it is moved during our tour there. We planned the position of the house and everything, but the only fly in the ointment is the fact that if we go to Manco we won't be here to do so. They are pondering whether to move Sesheke Boma or not, but they say that if they do they will put it at Katima Molilo, which we reached on the third day, but that is so far away from the Imwiko's and the Mokwai's villages, at Sesheke itself, so it wouldn't be half so convenient as Soka,
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which is only four or 5 miles from the Khotlas. Katima Molilo would also be three days further up from Sesheke, so it would take longer for things from Livingstone to get up there – mail, etc.
The next day, Tuesday 23rd, we started off at about six, and had quite a long day, getting into camp at about four, with an hours halt for lunch. We left the mainstream of the river, and spent nearly the whole day winding our way through the still water of the floods, and cutting off great chunky corners; we pushed our way through the reeds in the most remorseless way, and once it was so shallow that the boat sat down on the bottom and refused to move, so they all had to get out and push. And although it seemed very slow work, pushing our way through the reeds and finding the best tracks, we undoubtedly saved a lot of time, both by the fact that we cut off so many corners and by avoiding the strong current of the river.
Being in marshy country, we put up a lot of duck, and G. got eight altogether – for white-faced and for yellow-billed. As I told you in the last letter, Merry was awfully thrilled with them, and as each one arrived he attacked it with savage ferocity.
We spent most of the day reading and playing battle of Jutland, for which we have many variations. We have now got to such an original version of it that nobody would recognise it as being the battle of Jutland, as we have buffaloes, cheaters, duiker and stained book instead of battleships, cruisers, destroyers and submarines, and we have so many different methods of arranging the animals that we have now got to a version in which you don't put the animals in the squares at the beginning, but put them in as you go along, so they might be absolutely anywhere, which is great fun and awfully difficult – but not so impossible as it sounds! It is very difficult for the defender, so to speak, as well, as you have to be jolly careful not to get yourself left with all the squares filled up and no room left for the animals, which you have still to add in! It's a marvellous game, and passes the time splendidly.
The second day, Wednesday 24th, was just like the first except that G. shot one knobnose and three yellow-billed duck. We discovered that we have now been married exactly 5 months, and we don't know whether it's seems more or less, because it's gone so frightfully quickly and yet the wedding seems such years ago and we feel as though we've always been married and have known each other all our lives – yet a year ago we hadn't even met yet! We've gone such a long way in those five months – we thought we were silly enough about each other then, but it was absolutely nothing to what we are now – we are quite absurd!
Good night again, no time for more now.
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the third day, Thursday 25th, we got into the main river again, as we had come to the end of the swamps. Once we went over a young rapid, and all the paddlers had to get out into the water and push the boat over the rocks, which was rather exciting. I tried to get a film of it, but could not get a good one so didn't, and anyhow we aren't coming to lots more and much bigger ones, so it wouldn't really have been worth taking.
There are 12 paddlers in the other barge, which carries all their goods and chattels and huge banks of their mealie meal and we have 14 in ours – six in front and eight behind and us in the middle. One of the front ones has a beautiful hat, green and blue and gold straw hat, which must have been really a very fine hat once, when it protects the head of some illustrious lady; it once had a blue ribbon round it, but most of that has come off now; large chunk of the brim has come adrift from the hat and hangs over his face in a tickly and squint-making manner. It fell in the water the other day, but was luckily picked up by the other barge coming along behind, and seemed none the worse for its little jaunt.
We passed Katima Molilo in the morning, and saw the Martin's fine big patched shelter, where they lived when J.D. was surveying the forests in this neighbourhood in December. Opposite his shelter is another big house which belongs to a very rich South African gent called Blake, and he brings big shooting parties up here and keeps this house is a sort of shooting lodge. He is the only person who has been refused a game license in Sesheke District (it might be the whole of N.R. but I'm not quite sure, and G.'s asleep so I can't ask him.) Because once he went out after lion and got one in a trap, and when he took a lorry-load of natives to bring it in it got loose; Lake and most of the natives made a dash for the lorry, but instead of waiting to see that they were all safely just jumped in and stepped on the gas and one boy was left behind and got killed by the line. Anyway he still keeps his shooting lodge and brings all his friends to shoot, and we suppose he doesn't shoot himself!
His house is in the Capri V is it fell, you know that long strip of country which runs along the south bank of the river and which we took from the Germans and gave to South West Africa to look after; it is looked after by one man, called Britz, and the natives of Sesheke are not allowed across their to fish except in one or two places and there are tremendous restrictions put on them, which is infuriating for them as they conquered the Capri V in the olden days and also helped us to take it during the war.
Well, at Katima Molilo is the border of the Capri V, and from there onwards up the river Sesheke District is on both sides the river, as far up as Senanga District.
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(at the moment it is 10.30 a.m. on Wednesday3rd, and we are sitting under a tree near the river waiting for an ox wagon to come and carry the barge overland for some way to avoid very swift current of the narrow Sioma Gorge and the Sioma Falls at the end of it. Somebody went to fetch the wagon when we arrived here about an hour ago, but nothing has happened yet. G. is lying on the ground beside me fast asleep, and Merry is lying on the ground beside me the other side, fast asleep, so I consider I am most virtuous staying awake, typing in the depths of the African bush.)
Well, all that rot about Capri V zip fasteners and things being now over, we will go on to Friday 26th of February, 1937 the river is now very broad and swift, lined with thick bush and big trees right down to the waters edge and very lovely. We came to one or two fierce places, and had to dive into the shallower, bushy part of the edge to avoid getting swept down by the current.
That morning we came to the Ngambwe Rapids, and we had to get out and walk about a mile along the bank while the boat was pulled over the rocks empty. The rapids were a fine site from the rise above the river – right across the river they stretched, a line of foam and black water rushing over in visible rocks. It was terribly exciting watching them get the barge up to, and we took a lot of film of it; some people stayed in the boat and poled toward off the rocks as they came to them; some were struggling over their waists in the water, pulling and pushing from the outside; most of them were on the bank falling on the end of a huge rope.
They got it up in the end of course, but it was a tough job, and they were really marvellous, forcing their way over the sharp rocks in their bare feet, with the whole strength of the river pushing them back.
We had lunch at the other end, where we got into the barge again – the usual lunch of cold duck (fingers were made before forks!) Heinz baked and fried potatoes and stewed apple and chocolate anderry eight are bones for us. We stayed long enough for G. to see the village people, which she does at every place we stop; he has a book with him all the tax-paying men, and he calls the role to see who has died and who has gone away and who hasn't paid their tax last year and so on.
We managed to get one or two letters done in the barge, and we try and do at least one every day, as I have a terrific piles still of "congratulations on your engagement – or marriage" ones to answer, from dim people in dim places like Australia etc. I have now got the heat down to 3, and I'm going to try and do those today and then I'll have a completely clear conscience and will be able to do nothing quite legitimately and happily. We wrote to Hugh and David about being godfathers that day too.
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the fourth day, Saturday 27th, we had quite a lot of excitement. We were steaming along fullscreen ahead on the right-hand side of the road, when they suddenly saw a hippo in the middle of the river, so we stopped at the edge of the reeds and got the rifle out and G. had several poops at it but failed to get it. We thought there were two or three there, not only one, but by the time we'd finished we came to the conclusion that there were at least half a dozen. We floated ourselves across the river to a small island that was quite near them, and when we appeared on the other side there they were, all bouncing merrily up and down, blowing through their beaks every now and then, so G. had several more shots. We rather wanted to get one as their fat makes excellent cooking fat and one hippo would last us about two years! Marvellously economic, never having to buy any fat.
Then at last he got one. They are terribly difficult to shoot, as they only stay up for a few seconds at a time, just their faces, every two minutes or so. Everybody said he had hit him in the neck, so the chances were he was either hit in the jugular or the spine, in either case of fatal shot, the chances also were that the shot had either gone below the jugular, above the spine, or in between the two, as there is quite a lot of neck about a hippo.
He went down in a shower of spray, and as we hoped we had got him and we are only allowed one on the licence, we didn't try any more, and went on, leaving the transport barge to wait for three or four hours to get him when he came up dead, as he wouldn't come up for some time. The barge turned up eventually in the evening – withNO hippo hanging on behind! They said all the hippos had gone away as soon as we left, and they suppose that ours went away to, harmlessly wounded through the fleshy part of his flat great neck. A great pity, as it would have been G.'s first hippo, and we've neither of us seen a Whole Whippo out of the water, neat, just like that and it would have been rather fun, and we would have made at least £10 out of the Haida loan by selling it, and the natives would have loved the meat and we could have done with the fat.
(The ox wagon has just arrived – 10 couple of them – so I had better stop now, and I think I'm coming to the end of the page too. We are going to have lunch first, then walked the 4 miles to the place where we get into the barge again. At least They will walk. I will ride in a Machila, specially constructed on the spur of the moment for my express benefit.)
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Friday, 5th March.
They say we get to Senanga tomorrow morning, and so does the up-river mail and the down-river mail, so I must finish this tonight, and as it is now 6 o'clock and beginning to get dark I would just write this page and then stop and leave the rest for next week, which will probably come from Mongu as they say we get there on Tuesday – much earlier than we expected.
On Saturday 27th, after the hippo episode, we went on and camped at Kaseta, and when G. had done his office work the villagers said that a herd of impala came down to feed every evening quite close to the village, if he was interested. If he was interested in deed! So soon after tea off he went, and as I told you some pages back Merry and I stayed at home because it was very heavy walking and they were going quite a long way and would want to go fast.
They walked miles and miles, and eventually bumped right into a herd of about 50 impala, who of course ran off at once. G. got a fairly close shot – a young male and got him bang, and though they followed the others up a little way they didn't get a chance for another shot.
They carried him in (the impala, not G.) slung by his legs with his head between his front knees and his tail hanging down at the back very small and his tummy hanging down in the middle very big. Merry was a wee bit nervous of him at first, as it was dark and he looked rather big and frightening for a small dog, but when he saw that he was quite dead he got awfully fierce, and stood on the body while he chewed and pulled at the hide all round the wound in its side, and tried to pull it away to bury it!
It was G.'s first impala, but it hadn't got a big enough head to be worth keeping so I don't think they are, but they left the skin atKaseta for the villagers to look after and drive till we come back, and we will probably keep that the dogs to sleep on! I hope we will, after all it is his first impala, and it's such an attractive chestnut skin. White dog would look very nice on it, I think, like Shawgm on his black rug!
(He's out after guinea-file at the moment – I hope he gets one as they are simply delicious – we have heard about six shots so far, and it's nearly too dark to see so I'm not very hopeful.)
To be continued in our next. Gallons of love, everybody, and don't get anxious if you don't hear from us regularly in the next week or two – you will know where not dead and no news is good news, and will probably be awfully busy at Mongu.
From
US
PORTMANTEAU 019
In the middle,
Of the swamp,
N. Rhodesia.
Sunday, 7th March, 1937.
Darling everybody,
I've got so far behind with the news that I'm going to start from where I left off yesterday, and go straight on till I come to the end, and I'm not going to tell you a Word about What We Are Doing Now until I get there.
Sunday, 28th February
at about 5 o'clock in the morning, just as we were beginning to think about getting up, and Merry was getting out of his bed and scrabbling on the mosquito net for his early-morning rough-house, the male-barge from Mungo arrived with the wire from Mummy and Daddy saying that the nurse was engaged, so that's all right. I took a film of the barge, but I wish it was a colour film as all the men – 12 of them – wear bright scarlet shorts and shirts and fezes, as they looked simply lovely starting off in the early-morning light with the sun just up. I thought Annie-people might like to see how we get our mail!
When we started off, Merry & I went as usual in the barge, but G. walked along on his flat feet and the dry land for about an hour in the hopes of meeting some more game. And lo and behold! Before we had been parted for 10 minutes there was a BANG, and shortly afterwards a man came rushing with the news that he had got another Impala, with the first shot stone dead. So we went on a little further up the bank and presently heard another single Bang, and again the news came through that he had got another Impala, with the first shot stone dead.
We waited there and soon there arrived to Impala hanging on sticks over people's shoulders, and they were lumped into the second barge (which was by this time very Oh poof, with the remains of yesterday's in it too); they were both bigger than last nights, full-grown, but quite small as they are rather a small breed in this neighbourhood and they were both males luckily.
Then the Conquering Hero Came, and off we went.
We didn't see any more game that day, and had only one small insignificant rapid to negotiate, so there were no more excitements. We camped fairly early – at about 1 o'clock, near a deserted village, which was a pathetic model of broken down fences and hearts, roofs falling in, no doors, white ants crawling up the walls and all, and very high grass all over the place. It was deserted because all the people are in their gardens now keeping the birds off
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and they won't go back to the village till their crops have finished growing. There was hardly anywhere to walk as it was an island and the grass was terribly long and had seeds in it that got stuck onto our socks and clothes and pricked like anything, so we didn't go out shooting and had a very pleasant lazy day in our grass hut.
Monday and Tuesday were fairly dull, just going along and we played our usual bouts of Jutland, writing letters, reading, sewing and bullying Merry. On Tuesday we got out of our District into Senanga District, so we have no more prepared camps and no more work to do, and the paddlers have to clear the space and collect the firewood and make paths etc.
On Tuesday night we camped miles from anywhere on a ridge above a lovely quiet day with a white sandy beach all round it and masses of hartebeest spoor all over the place and a hippo's path. The next day we passed any number of these little bays, and at the end of each one there was a point of land sticking out into the river making a little rapid where the water rushed round the corner into the next day. At most of these corners they all had to get out and pull us round with the rope, and at one place we had to get out to to lessen the load.
Wednesday, 3rd March, 1937.
By Jove doesn't time fly? I'd forgotten it was March already, and we forgot to say has and rabbits but I can't remember what happens if you DO say has and rabbits so I don't expect it will make any difference.
At about 10 o'clock we turned up a small backwater to avoid the very narrow and rushy Sioma Gorge with the Falls at the far end, and had to get everything out of the barge so that it could be towed overland by oxen for about 4 miles. As I told you in the last portmanteau the oxen didn't turn up till about 12 so we had lunch there before we started off, and watched the span of 20 vast beasts towing the old arc along the sandy track, kicking up a nice dust frost walk-through afterwards!
G. had to walk, and it was terribly hot, and the b heat of the sand underfoot came through his shoes – like the pavement in New York did when we were there – and Merry's toes didn't approve at all, so he jumped up into the modular with me; it was a very neat little hammock thing that some missionary had given to G. up at Luwingo when he first came out, and they found a stout pole to hang it on and tied it together with the tent ropes and it was very comfy, with my head and feet right up in the air and my behind hanging nearly to the ground in the middle!
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we hoped to get a glimpse of the Falls when we got to the other end, but though we could hear them as if they were very close the messenger said it was about a mile to them, and when one did get there there wasn't much to see as it was rather difficult to get a good few of them; G. had been to them in 1935 on his way up to Mankoya-via-Mongu, in the height of the dry season, and had walked out onto the rocks on the very edge, but he said it was awfully difficult to get at and would probably be even more so in the flood-season, so we didn't go, but contented ourselves with looking at the rapids that led to the Falls, having a cup o' tea, and taking a couple of taxes and teaching Merry to Lie Down to order.
The shooting results were three white-faced duck and to common sandpipers with long slim straight pointed little beaks and long green legs. We have seen quite a lot of them about, and he shot these quite by mistake, the same shot as he got two of the duck!
Thursday, 4th March.
All day we went up a little backwater with breeds and long dry grass on either side, backed by thick bush and trees. At about 7.30 somebody suddenly said "Nsefu", which is Eland, and there we saw, about half a mile ahead of us, some heads standing up above the grass, straight up horns on chestnut heads. G. and the Head Messenger and Musonda and Chishimba and the rifle rushed off at breakneck speed, and about half an hour later we saw the heads turn in their direction, then well round and disappear, and then we heard a shot. Silence. Two quick shots. Silence.
We waited for some time, then paddled up the river as far as the place where we first saw them and waited for news. Presently somebody arrived carrying a tail, a fawn-coloured cow-like tail, which Merry immediately commandeered as his own special property; the man said that they had shot this one dead and had wounded another in the shoulder pretty badly, so we presumed he was following it up. All the paddlers lept out of the barges and rushed off to skin and cut up the dead one – it would be much too big to bring in whole – and Mehdi and I sat under a tree and awaited developments, which developed in the shape of G.
he then went off and got the wounded one, who had lain down feeling very sick, and hadn't the energy to go very far. Unfortunately they were both cows, but as the cows have horns as well as the bulls, and as there is usually only one bull in the herd, it is very difficult to get him, and very hard to see which is which in the changing lights and the very high, thick grass.
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the first animal was the biggest – I should think she stood about 14.2 hands high – and her horns were approximately 29" or 30" long, which is quite good, as the average is 28" and the record 37". Those numbers are for a male, of course, and females are usually longer and slender than males – straight horns with the bit that looks as if it has been twisted round them afterwards. Nice chestnut-fawn coats, with white stripes down their sides to show where their ribs are, and funny black splodges on their legs like the chestnuts on a horse's legs. They are the biggest buck in the bush, and the most harmless, as they are one of the few bucks who will not go for you when he is wounded; they have that funny sweet milky smell like cows do, and are very like cows altogether – and are very good indeed to eat, especially the tail.
Well, by the time the hunt was over it was about 10.30 and presently the paddlers arrived carrying great hunks of meat on poles over their shoulders, and they brought the head for me to see, and I think we will probably keep it – anyway until we get the chance of a better one. The people were thrilled to have the meat – they were very lucky as they had already had the best part of three Impala – and we heard the buzz of talk very late into the night. Our Wemba boys smoke there's, like biltong, but them Marozi eat theirs raw. We kept the brisket and had a huge hunk of its salted to last the journey up.
Friday,5th March.
Last night we pitched camp at a place where the down-mail had seen some buffalo the other day, but the only sign we saw of them were a few two-day-old spoor – so disappointing. But we got up early the next day, and every now and then during the journey the Head Messenger went ashore to explore the prospects, but always came back with a shaking head and the news of day-old spoor, and we finally gave up hope of getting into them and came to the conclusion that they had wandered off into the Bush again. That's the trouble of the reins, everything is scattered because there is so much water about all over the Bush that they do not need to contretemps rate at the river to drink. It's the same trouble exactly that we came across in Kenya, when we went up to the Northern Frontier Province with Eric in search of lion.
We camped at about three, and just as we were sitting down by the fire in our fat dressing-gowns (to keep the mosquitoes off our legs) for some downers, we heard the bicycle wheel-noise of guineafowl, quite close to us in the trees at the edge of the river. Off went G.'s dressing-gown, out came the shot-gun, Chishimba appeared like magic and off they went. Seven shots, the last one when it was almost
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too dark to see – "all Mrs of course" sez I. Then home they all come carrying Seven Dead Guineafowl! They are such good eating too, when they are well cooked – most people say they are so drunk, because they need a terrific loss of basting, pouring gravy over them the whole time they are cooking, and luckily good old Musonda knows how to do them better than I've ever tasted them (not that I've tasted them often, but the Martin,s Cook certainly didn't know how to do them properly).
Old Musonda's such a scream. He is the most marvellously cheery person, always laughing and smiling, and he's been very cocky lately as he is the proud possessor of a power of my brown tennis socks and a pair of G.'s old veldtschoen, which died the other day. I don't know how he manages to get size's nine socks on, G.'s shoes are like boats over them, but that doesn't matter and he wears them all the time and is frightfully thrilled with them, especially as Chishimba and Peter both forgot to bring any issues and so get an awful lot of thorns in their feet.
He was so funny the other day. He came along when we were having breakfast to say good morning, which consists of curtsying clapping his hands, and saying, "Mwapoleni Mokwai" and grinning hugely; he did it to me, then got up to go away, so G. said aunt you going to say good morning to me?" And he said "well, you're the same thing aren't you?" Or words to that effect. G. promptly said, "NO, I am not, I AM THE BWANA", very importantly. Musonda came back with "but I am the Mama's boy now." Complete flab gas station of G: "well. What about taking a month's notice then?" Answer: "that's all right, I'm an old man and it's about time I retired!" Roaring with laughter the whole time, and old Chishimba sniggering behind his hand.
Some people might consider that it was cheeky of Musonda to talk like that, but it isn't at all. He's been with G. ever since he first came out, and helped him learn the language and mothered him when he was new, and is such an "old friend" and nothing would be further from his mind and to be cheeky, and he would be terribly upset if he was ever considered so.
He is very much a "white man's boy" so to speak, and is "on our side". For instance, when we are at home and a Marozi boy comes round with some meat to sell and demands a shilling for it, Musonda simply will not allow me to buy it, as he says it's much too expensive and the boy is a robber to ask that! I never buy anything without consulting him, and he scrutinises every fish and every egg and every groundnut with great care before he will let me buy it. He is so wonderfully trustworthy too; I keep about 10 bobs worth of six fences and shillings in a little pot on my dressing table, and when he comes in and says he wants 6d
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to buy some Mili's, I just tell him to go and take it out of the pot, and I am quite certain he never takes more than he wants, as I keep an account in my diary and it is never wrong (it may be my bad arithmetic of course).
Well, to get back to the business in hand. That night we heard hippos hooting quite close to us on the other side of the small island, in the main river. It's such a funny noise, very deep and low and grandly; I love hearing animal noises in the night – hyenas and the like – as it really does make you realise you are in the Bush – even if you have got deckchairs and three servants!
Saturday,6th March.
We got a mail from Livingstone at sparrow-squawk, and read all the letters going along in the barge. We got one from Mummy, having just got our cable saying I was coming home! It was silly of us not to think of a booking a cabin before, but now I am very glad we didn't as it just settles it – I CAN'T come home even if I wanted to! The Blue Wool Shoes sound most intriguing, and it must have been fun looking at Matinee Coats – I always think that sounds as if he ought to have an Evening Cloak too.
We got Four from Mum, from Aden, Bombay, Agra and New Delhi, which was rather fun, and your tour sounds so lovely, and I'm so glad the jamboree was such a success, but it just COULDN'T be as marvellous as the Australian one. But I am still not in the least jealous! But the funny thing in both the letters was the everlasting controversy over Girls' Names. I hope to goodness it's a boy, because if it isn't I'm afraid we'll just have to take the law into our own hands and be really hard-hearted and call it exactly what WE like, or else call it something quite quite different from anything we've suggested before – how about Agatha or Harriet? I must tell you what you all said about the names as it really is rather funny, it made us roar with laughter till we realised how serious it would be if it DID turn out a Girl
1. Juliet.
Daddy – likes it much better than Julia and likes Judy for short.
Mommy – I like and I also like Judy for short. Julia no.
Mum – oh NOT Juliet! And Judy is cruel.
2. Sylvia.
Daddy – quite approved of.
Mommy – not bad, quite nice and uncommon.
Mum – NOT Sylvia, oh please not!
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3. Lindia
Daddy – would bar it, and we don't think it would be popular.
Mummy – very nice but I feel it wouldn't quite do. There was a lot of disapproval when Lindros was called it.
Mum – yes. Very nice, and Lindis St Clair sounds nice.
4. Penelope
Daddy – doesn't care for it a bit.
Mummy – don't like it because servants call it Penny-lope. (But she won't be living with white servants, and anyway they'd soon learn – B.)
Mum – not. Or Sally or Janet or Penny.
5. Sally
Daddy - no good.
Mummy – AWFUL
Mum – no
6. Alison
Daddy – too Scotch and we're NOT Scotch
Mummy – don't like it either.
Mum – I like it.
7. Ariel
Daddy – there isn't such a name except in Shakespeare. (Yes there is, I know one. – B.)
Mummy – rather too fanciful, but rather nice.
Mum – is nice and unusual.
8. Gillian.
Daddy & Mummy – you didn't comment on this, and we are rather favouring it at the moment, so could we please have your opinion – or is it so low that you didn't think it worth mentioning?)
Mum – is nice.
Now our views on the next batch of Mummy's:
1. Victoria – quite ghastly.
2. Robina – quite ghastly.
3. Elizabeth – very dull – everybody's called Elizabeth. Also people who didn't know would say that she was called after me, and I'M NOT Elizabeth.
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now would you just cast your eyes over these and give your opinions of them? And do say what you feel and don't think that we are being put off by your opinions, because we do so want to have something that everybody likes, though I've no weird all love her very much if she's called Prudence or Matilda (poor little soul). Anyway, it doesn't really matter in the least as we all know perfectly well it's going to be a boy, or else twin boys. So it will probably turn out to bequin-girls, which would save an awful lot of trouble as they would be simply Primus second us tertiary's quadruped (or whatever4th is) and Quintus, or else, Ann, Jane, Mary, Betty and Hey-you.
1. Diana – the goddess of hunting. We both quite like it though we aren't batty about it.
2. June – one of the reasons we liked Juliet or Julia (apart from the fact that I've always loved the name) is because it's being born in July, but if it came early, what about June?
3. Gillian – definitely to be considered. It would be called Gill for short, but the only snag to that is that she would then suffer under the same torture as G. does – of having it spelt with the J, which irritates him beyond measure.
(G. is out at the moment, and I can't remember what else we thought of. Oh, here he is.)
4. Vivian – I like it, and G. does quite, but not very much.
5. evil in – only on condition she was called evil in, and certainlyNOT EV, although I've got to like it a bit better than I used to because of liking EV so much.
I think that's all we can think of. Hugh is sending us his name-book soon I believe, so we will have another whack when that arise.
Well, at about midday on Saturday the 6th we arrived at Senanga, the next Station up from Sesheke and found there Mr Leversedge, who came out on the Dunnottar with us and is a Grass-widower as Lisbeth is staying in England with the two children until October, when they are being moved to Namwala. He was in very good form and talked 19 to the dozen all the time we were there; G. new just how he felt, having been at Mankoya alone for months and months without having a soul to talk to, though there is a mission (to French ones) and an odd storekeeper or two quite near Senanga, but it's not quite the same as meeting
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someone else in the Service that you can let off steam to
the house is quite new, only built in 1931, and has a lovely situation up on the top of the hill above the river, overlooking a wide sweeping bend with a wooded ridge running right round the edge of it. I would to the left is nothing but mile upon mile of playing, with a faint blue line on the horizon which is the "opposite shore" so to speak of the Zambesi's basin; usually that plane is just grass, with bits of grass here and there, and an occasional clump of grass, and every now and then patch of grass and wide stretches of grass, but now it is all just water, with here and there channel of water, and a pool of water every now and then to break the monotony between the patches of water. Actually, it is water and grass together, as some of the grass refuses to become water till the water is grown big enough to completely submerge the grass. So the view from Senanga is a symphony of grass and water.
The house is the same style as the Mankoya house, and it isSO nice – absolutely palatial after the little pig-sty at Sesheke. It is built of new red brick, with a nice long Veranda and the sitting room and dining room are joined together by a tall archway, which would look very nice with a heavy draping curtain. The floors are all nice and whole instead of with great cracks across them and white ant mounds sticking up in the cracks, and the walls and ceilings are also clean -looking and newly painted. It'll be so lovely when we go to Mankoya and have a beautiful house like this, and start all fresh in it, and I have to get some new curtains and things.
The whole station is very nice too. Until 1931 it was at Nalolo, not very far away, which consists of several small islands, so you had to go in a boat from the house to the office, and in another boat from there to the Morena Mokwai's village, and in another boat from all of them to the mainland. So tiresome, and so unhealthy, being surrounded by water like that. So they move it up to its present position, and I can't think why they didn't think of putting it there in the first place as it is an ideal spot for a Boma. All the paths from house to office, aerodrome, compound, messengers lines, river, etc. are built of brick lined with little white stones, so neat. The office is a lovely place with an office for the D.C., another for the junior official, another for the native clerk and a nice big court-room with a lime skin on the floor under the desk.
There's is a very fine aerodrome to; Leversedge is very keen on flying and passed his A or B certificate on this last leave, so he is scrupulous about keeping the aerodrome in good order and has flipped round several times in the old planes that landed there.
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he had a huge dog called Ben, which belonged to his predecessor, Heggs, whose home on leave and is coming back in a few months time to Senanga; it is a sort of native dog with probable bits of pointer somewhere, a vast white animal with brown splodges and a tailless curving over his back in a native-dog manner. When Merry arrived on the scene of action bend disapprove strongly and almost went for him, snarling and baring his teeth and heckling his back, so he was turned out on the end of the boot which annoyed him still more. However, by the time we left he had come round, and was even trying to play with Merry, though it was a very pathetic effort as he was so fast that Merry couldn't get away from him, every time he tried to catch up with us then got hold of his back in his teeth and rolled him over, and poor little dog couldn't get up without being rolled over again!
Merry's second day in a house was not a very great success. He had one day at Sesheke, and misbehaved himself several times, and this time he succeeded about three times, but was so cruelly treated after each time that he didn't tried it on again so it was all right and he was allowed to stay indoors. I think it was a great deal excitement, and the fact that he couldn't get out whenever he wanted to, but he has never made a mistake either in the barge or in the tent so we thought he considered himself house-trained. He always sleeps in bed with us now, neither of our feet or else curled up in the crook (that is meant to be crook) of our knees or tummies, and is SO good, never moves till it's time to get up. He is much gentler with his little sharp teeth now too, and only licks faces instead of biting them, and understands NO perfectly. He really is the MOST adorable little person, and has such attractive little tricks – sometimes lying on his back and galloping with his front paws with a broad grin on his face. And when he lies on his tum on your chest, with his nose between his paws and his eyes rolling up at you, he's just irresistible.
I must stop now. We are at Mongo, staying with the what more is, but I'm not going to tell you anything about it at all till the time comes, as it is only muddling if you know something about last week and something about next week and nothing about this week, so to speak. The mail goes tomorrow, and as we have arrived a few days early I will probably have quite a lot of spare time and will be able to get up-to-date in the next portmanteau.
It's all being SUCH fun, and were still just at the point of bursting with happiness. We are both very well, and G. seems to have quite got over his bits of fever. I am better than I've ever been before I think, and I'm very pink, which is unusual for Little Pasty Face, isn't it.
Bags of Love (all we've got to spare, anyway),
from
US.
