Letters From Gervas

7. 19th September, 1933 to 28th February, 1934

On the 9th of September, 1933, Gervas, aged 26, sailed back from Tilbury to Africa after his first Home Leave, on the "S.S. Grantully Castle". 

At that stage, he did not know to where he was to be posted.  It was to Mankoya (now Kaoma) in Barotseland, and to get there, he travelled by train from Capetown to Livingstone, where he stayed for a few days until his possessions arrived from his previous posting.  These were always referred to as"loads", and at this stage they already amounted to about 3,500 lbs.  He then went up-river by lorry to the end of the road at Katombora, some 50 miles from Livingstone.  This road had been created to by-pass the rapids. He then went by barge up the Zambesi to Mongu, the administrative capital of Barotseland, where he stayed for a few days, before walking the 140 miles to Mankoya, there being no roads.  One of his duties was to create a road across his District, as part of the road to be built between Lusaka, soon to be made the Capital of the country, and Mongu.

While in England, he had bought a car, to be delivered in bits for him to assemble - to those who knew him well, the very idea is laughable, for he was one of the most un-handy of men !

                            SS GRANTULLY CASTLE                                                   Grays

Essex

14 Sep 33

Mrs Clay,

Weston House,

Albury,

Surrey.

I have arrived on board with all my goods, but I find we don’t put in at Plymouth & the last post is just off.

Much love

G.

UNION CASTLE LINE

            SS GRANTULLY CASTLE

Sept: 19th 1933

My dear Mummy,

We get to Las Palmas sometime tomorrow so I must write & tell you how I am getting on. The boat pitched a good deal for the first three days & is now rolling a good deal as there is a big swell on.

A number of people have been ill, but I have survived so far.

This ship is much like the old Gloucester but a shade smaller. There are a number of people going to N.R. but nobody I knew before, & practically none of any interest at all! There is a plethora of children who seem to get up at some unearthly hour in the morning & a lot of crotchety old women & tough S. Africans.

We have a tote on the ship’s run each day & I was on the winning number today & won 12/6.

I did so enjoy all my leave & my time at home & it was so sweet of you & Daddy to give me such a lot of fun.

I haven’t been able to gather any news about where I’m going to, but I hear that Goodall is the new P.C. at Kasama – I believe he is very clever but considers the people under him as machines.

I have played bridge once & won 1/3 playing at 1d a 100.

After Las Palmas we go to Lobito & thence to Cape Town.

Very much love to you all

Your  v. Loving

G.

The SS Gloucester Castle, 8,006 tons, was built in1911 by Fairfield, Govan, Yard No 478 for the Union-Castle Mail Steamship Company.   It was this ship in which Gervas made his first voyage out to Africa in 1930.  On the 15th July 1942 whilst on a voyage from Liverpool to Table Bay with 12 passengers, 142 crew and six gunners, she was sunk by the German raider Michel off South West Africa. Captain H.H. Rose and 92 passengers and crew were killed. Two lifeboats containing 61 people were picked up by the raider and taken to Japan as prisoners, two of whom died in captivity.

UNION-CASTLE LINE

S.S. “GRANTULLY CASTLE”

Oct: 7^th 1933

Recd Jan 23, 1934

My dear Mummy.

We are now in sight of Robbin Island (the old leper settlement) & reach Cape Town after dark tonight, so we shall not land till tomorrow. I hope to find out from the agent where I’m going but in any case you will have got a cable from me by the time this letter arrives.

We have had a’very enjoyable trip’& I have enjoyed it very much. I have played a good deal of bridge, but missed not having my nice partner to bid up to slams with!

My luck has been very good & I have won the sweep on the ships run 12 or 13 times, so that I have had very little expense. In the deck sports I won the bolster bar, beating a man in the final who had done the trip many times before & had never been beaten. I then challenged the winner of the third class bolster bar to the best of five falls & knocked him off three times running though he was a left-hander & I couldn’t protect myself against him. I also won the potato race, & the knockout auction Bridge competition in which I drew as partner a doctor’s wife.

We are now in the Cape rollers & the ship is rolling a good deal. I haven’t been ill at all though many people have been at one time or another.

There are a number of Northern Rhodesians on board & I have made friends with a fellow called Austin in the Treasury Department & his wife to whom he got married in N.R. just before going on leave.

There is also Dr Sandman & his wife going to Fort Jamieson & a D.C. called Hazel who is nearly always tight & rather Chamberlain-like!

I seem not to have got my signet ring, has it turned up at Weston, I wonder?

Much love to you all

Your v. Loving

G.

12 OCT 33

ZBH33SOL

K69 LIVINGSTONE RHODESIA 13 12 1105

LC CLAY 124 SHERE

PROCEEDING MONGU CANCEL SHIPMENT CAR IF POSSIBLE. WELL

CLAY

Tell Hugh and Walters my address.

By air

October 14^th 1932.

recd Oct 30

Livingstone

My dear Mummy,

I arrived here safely to find the hottest time of the year & I have been here a week waiting for my stuff to arrive from Mpika so that I can take it up with me to Mongu by barge. I am hoping to go up on Wednesday 18th. It’s terribly hot here but I am staying with the chief secretary McKenzie Kennedy who is really more important than the Governor to a junior official. He has been exceedingly nice & kind to me.

It’s an awful nuisance about the car but otherwise I don’t mind going to Mongu, though I shall have to learn a new language called Sikololo. I believe I’m only to stay at Mongu till January or February when I go on to Balovale pronounced Balo-varley – you may remember my pronouncing it to you. Both districts are in Barotseland which is governed by the Paramount Chief Yeta & I gather that an official up there is much more of a political officer advising the sub-chiefs or Kutas as they are called. It will take me three weeks to get to Mongu by boat but I believe the trip is very interesting & that I shall get some very good shooting en route. You will find that letters take a very long time to arrive.

There have been a lot more retirements & most of the outstations are now one-man stations though I believe there will be someone over me when I go to Balovale – probably Waugh who is one year senior to me. Mongu is the administrative capital of Barotseland & is close to Lealui (Lay-are-loo-e) the chief’s capital.

There is a P.C. there – Palmer, who is retiring early next year, & a D.C. Wilkins, who is Irish & very nice indeed so everyone says. There is also a postal official & a magistrate’s clerk so what work I shall have to do I don’t at present see!

There is an enormous native population & no game at Mongu, though there is very good duck & snipe shooting their, I hear. Balovale is a good game district. Mongu is on the Zambesi & is very hot at this time of year. It is a very sandy place I believe & there are no roads.

From what the Chief Secretary says, I gather that it is quite a compliment to be sent to Barotse & the work is more difficult there, & that the junior men who have done well in N.E. on their last tour are all going to Barotse for this one. I expect I shall stay in Barotse for the whole of this tour (three years) but I might well get a district to myself before I come home on leave.

We had an appalling journey up in the train – at first too cold at night to sleep & next night too hot, & thick coating of red dust over everything. Wilkins is D.C. Livingstone now, so I have seen him & Mrs W. who has a semi-paralysed face as the result of a stroke.

On Sunday I went for a picnic on the Zambesi & we bathed at the top of the Victoria Falls in big pools. There is very little water going over the Falls at this time of year & it is particularly low this year. There is also a wonderful swimming bath in the Zambesi which is croc proof & I have bathed there twice.

Very much love to you all

Your v. Loving

G.

By air

Recd. 6.11.33

Friday 20^th Oct. ‘33

Livingstone

My dear Mummy,

My kit from Mpika has still not put in an appearance, so I’m still here, but hoping to be off tomorrow. It will take me three weeks to get to Mongu so this will be the last letter you will get from me for some time. The weather here is a lot cooler the last day or two & I hope the rains will break soon, though it may be rather unpleasant in the barge going up, if it rains really heavily.

Yesterday the mail arrived here & I much hoped for a letter, but nothing came to the Secretariat except a lot of papers sent on by Daddy. I then went to the G.P.O. where I had to pay8d. for a bulky package which turned out to be a list of New College addresses re-directed by Daddy & under stamped & with no letter inside – a real sell.

Incidentally Daddy’s letter that I got at Cape Town cost me 6d as that was under stamped too!!

I hope you haven’t forgotten about the bookplates being made for me as I’m most anxious to have them.

Today I have been to tea with the Wickenses who were very nice. I was to have started this morning but found that my kit still hadn’t arrived. I hear that Peacock is down to be D.C. Senanga when he comes back & Phibbs D.C. Mankoya, so I hope I shall get a district too sometime soon! Peacock won’t get back from leave till next year.

I wonder if you managed to stop the shipment of my car. If you have will you try & sell it for me? I think you should get £110 for it. If it has already gone it will be a dead loss as I shall get little or nothing for it out here & there are no roads at Mongu!

Much love to you all

Your v. Loving

G.

Mongu

Thur Nov: 16^th, 1933.

Recd Tues Dec 19 (not by air) 4 weeks 4 days

My dear Mummy,

I haven’t left myself much time for this letter I’m afraid as I have been in such a rush.

I’m sending you today a cable saying that I am to be sent to Mankoya as District Commissioner at the beginning of December!  So by the time you get this (D.V.) I shall be at Mankoya in charge of my first district.  Mankoya has usually, I believe, been a one-man station but at present & I hope permanently there is a cadet there too – name of Curtis.  I am to take over from one Stevens who is going on leave.

Though high up & healthy they say, & out of the appalling sand which prevails here & over most of Barotse, Mankoya has a very bad reputation for lions, especially man-eating lions.

Stevens was alone for a long time at Mankoya but the lions were so bad & he let them get so much on his nerves that they had to send Curtis to be with him!  However I hear that Curtis is a first-rate shot & very keen to get a lion, so we may have some fun & anyway I refuse to let them scare me after being at Luwingu & Mpika which were both bad lion places in theory.

Mankoya is a big district in area but small in population, & is a wonderful place for game they say.  I think I’m very lucky to be going there & am delighted at the prospect of having my own district.  At the moment there are two people of the year junior to me in charge of districts, but both are only temporary, whereas it looks as though mine were permanent though one can’t tell of course.

The present P.C. is Palmer but he leaves on retirement shortly & the new one, Stokes, has never been to Barotse before, but always up in North-East, so although I have never met him, he probably knows quite a lot about me, & anyhow we shall have a fairly similar outlook & I hope I shall do things in the way he likes & expects things done!

I had an excellent trip up here & it was very amusing & instructive.  I also got some good shooting & the new rifle was a great success.  I got 7 heads of Buck in 20 shots, & four of these shots were simple ’coup de grace’, so when I know it a little bit better, I ought to do some good execution.  Every buck I hit I got which was satisfactory & the rifle seems to be a very powerful one.  I got a reedbuck with the first shot out of the rifle, & then a Roan cow, a wildebeeste, a Roan bull, & 3 tsessebe.  Not having got my boy who knows how to take the skin off the heads, I shan’t be able to get them set up like my black lechwe, but the horns of the roan, wildebeeste & 1 tsessebe are quite good & I am keeping them.  Unfortunately there is foot & mouth in Barotse for the first time & no skins or heads can be exported at present, so they must wait.  Later on I shall hope to get red lechwe, which are common here, and send it home to get on the other side of the ’Old Boy’!!

This letter will probably arrive about Christmas so I will wish you all all the very best of good wishes & for the New Year.  I fear the Chinchewincheer will not materialise this year, but I hadn’t laid my hands on the address yet & I shan’t really be able to settle down & unpack until I get to Mankoya in a few weeks’ time.  So please tell everyone not to expect Chinches this year.  Also my Christmas presents will probably be late.  I hear airmmail is useless from here & in fact often takes longer, so I shan’t try it yet

Thank you very much for the books, papers, etc. & 2 v. Long letters from you & one from Daddy.  The one you forgot to address arrived with no delay at all & I don’t think you need have worried as I have often told you it would get to me with only Northern Rhodesia as an address!  They were such lovely long letters.

I just got caught by the rain in the barge before I got up here & now the rains have really set in & I don’t know how I shall get all my books tried to Mankoya when I moved.

Here I have been given an awful little house with almost no furniture but it doesn’t matter as I shall be off so soon.  Williams, the D.C., is out on tour & Thomas (F.M.) who is junior to me is running the office.  Personally I am just reading up everything I can lay my hands on about the Barotse method of government before going to Mankoya.  Taking over a district in N.E. would have been comparatively easy for me, but taking over one on this side where I know neither the language nor the method of administration won’t be nearly so easy.

My first job will be writing the annual report of the district in which I have just arrived & about which I know absolutely nothing!!

I will go into my journey up in greater detail next week & also describe Mongu to you which I can’t do now in detail.  It is on a hill 10 miles from the River with a flat plane on three sides & even the hill is sand!  I have been out snipe shooting twice on the plane which is beginning to flood & got a brace of snipe each time.

There are a few horses here (but none at Mankoya) so I hope to get an occasional ride though the foot & mouth restrictions are on, & the best mayor has just had a foal.

Mankoya will, I fear, be an even lonelier station than Luwingu, but I believe they are keen on people taking local leave.

Well I must stop now, best wishes to you all

Your v. Loving

G.

November 17th 1933 Mongu

Rec’d Dec. 4

Part air – two weeks three days

My dear Mummy,

Whether you will get this before the long letter I wrote you yesterday or not, I don’t know! There is an aerodrome here & the plane has arrived this morning & I’m able be able to persuade the pilot to take this letter & posted by airmail in Livingstone in which case you will get it comparatively quickly.

Mankoya, to which I go as D.C. next month, is off the Barotse plain & out of the sand area, though still in Barotseland. It used to be a one-man station but there’s a cadet there now called Curtis. It’s a very bad place for man-eating lion’s & the present D.C. there, Stevens, had a very bad time with them.

However it’s great luck getting a district so soon & I think I shall probably be at Mankoya in charge for a considerable time. The present P.C. here leaves on retirement next month, & the new man, Stokes, comes from North-East & has never been in Barotse before though I have never met him. Mankoya is about a hundred and 20 miles from Mongo I believe. 30 or 40 miles across the plane & the rest on higher ground through the forest. It’s a large but little populated area, a very good game district & not, I should imagine, a very busy place.

There are horses here in Mongo but none at Mankoya & no motor roads, so I shall probably have to try & sell my car. In the parts where there is sand (i.e..most of this district) one rides a horse or walks., In Mankoya one rides a motor- or push-bike. I may get a motor-bike from Stevens but don’t feel keen as I have never ridden one!

I believe the house at Mankoya is a very big one which will be nice.

I must stop in a hurry & hope to have caught the aeroplane. There is a big letter coming!

Your v. Loving

G.

Newspaper cuttings

Newspaper cuttings

These newspaper cuttings from THE TIMES newspaper were filed by Gerard Clay with the letters from his son, Gervas, who was then in Northern Rhodesia.

---------------------------------------

NORTHERN RHODESIAN BUDGET

FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT

BULAWAYO, Nov. 8

in the course of his Budget speech in the Legislative Council of Northern Rhodesia the Chief Secretary estimated the revenue from 1934 at £655,660 and the expenditure £705,325, a deficit of £47,665. He said that retrenchment had been carried beyond safety limits.

It is expected that the Governor and the officials of several administrative offices will be moved from Livingstone to Lusaka, the new capital of the territory, before the end of 1934.

Replying to Labour Party questions in the Australian parliament yesterday, Col White, the Minister of customs, denied that Japanese toys were being dumped into Australia. Japan, he said, bought three times as much from Australia as Australia from Japan.

THE TIMES, 9/11/1933

NORTHERN  RHODESIA

When the present financial year closes a decade will have passed since the colonial office took over Northern Rhodesia from the British South Africa Company. They have been years increasingly dominated by the fall in prices, and many promising schemes just had time to get started when the call for drastic economy went out. The territory was told that it could not look to London to help, and there has been no alternative but the dismissal of officials, who have everybody sympathy, and the suspension or slowing down of development. This policy has been a particularly unfortunate one for a colony in the position of Rhodesia. The future is open; even the boundaries of the colony and is orientation to the north-east or to the south-west are matters that have not yet settled themselves. In these early days decisions are being taken which are irrevocable and which determine the character of that future. Such decisions ought not to be governed by immediate and temporary considerations of finance.

A particular instance at the moment is the building of a new capital at Lusaka, where private benefactors have most usefully and fortunately stepped in. The pros and cons of moving the capital from Livingstone in the extreme south were carefully discussed for years after the colonial office took over the territory. The mining area is in the extreme north, and the capital obviously to be in reasonably close touch with it. The converging considerations in favour of a central capital, at a higher elevation than Livingstone, brought general conviction, and the building of Lusaka is now well begun. But it is principally to the Beit Trust that the colony owes it that for the next four years it is not crippled by interest charges. The Colonial Development Advisory Committee has also granted free interest for three years at 3 ½% on £130,000 for water and electric light. Thanks to these private and public concessions, the work at Lusaka is able to occupy the available white labour in the colony. The Governor, Sir Ronald Storrs, in his latest address to the Legislative Council, has been able to announce the extension of the aerial services, upon which so large and sparser territory must inevitably rely; and here again the colony is greatly indebted to the Beit Trust. He announced with pride that Northern Rhodesia continues to meet its necessities from its own resources, and that the situation is steadily improving, so that there are good grounds for thinking that the era of drastic retrenchment is passed.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

THE TIMES, 18/11/1933

TELEPHONE SERVICE WITH RHODESIA

OPENING ON MONDAY

The Postmaster-General announces that from Monday telephone service will be available with certain places in northern and southern Rhodesia, including Livingston, Broken Hill, Salisbury, and Bulawayo.

The hours of service will be from 8.45 a.m. to 12.45 p.m. each weekday. The charge for a three-minute call from London to northern Rhodesia will be £6  15s. And to southern Rhodesia £6  9s., The charges for each additional minute being £2  5s. and £2 3s. respectively.

THE TIMES, undated, but probably November, 1933

19331118 

Whitaker's Almanack, 1932.

Page 758 – the British Empire.

The trunk line of the Rhodesia railway system traverses northern Rhodesia from living stone to the Belgian Congo border. Zambezi, Kafue, Chambesi and other rivers are navigable for a considerable portion of their courses. There are 44 post offices, 18 of which are money order offices. A telegraph line exist alongside the railway line throughout its whole length in the territory; other lines connect Abercorn with the Nyasaland and Tanganyika systems and also Fort Jameson with Nyasaland . The construction of 600 miles of new pole route was completed in 1931. A central wireless station (long and short waves) has been erected at Broken Hill, and large district short-wave stations, all equipped for telegraph and telephone communications, have been installed at Livingstone, Mongu, Abercorn, Fort Jameson and Mpika. The administration of the territory is in the hands of a Governor appointed by the Crown, assisted by an Executive Council of five official members. There is a Legislative Council of 16 members, with the majority of official members. The seat of government is at Livingstone, near the Victoria Falls, on the Zambesi. The country is divided into nine provinces for fiscal and administrative purposes. The most important centres are Livingstone, Broken Hill, Fort Jameson, Lusaka, Mazabuka, Abercorn, Kaasama, Fort Rosebery, Ndola and Mongo-Lealui.

                                                                        1929 – 30.                     1930 – 31.

Revenue                                                          £672, 289                      £830,254

Expenditure                                                     £554, 527                      £704,986

Governor,

His Excellency Sir James Crawford Maxwell, K.C.M.G., K.B.E., M.D.(1927)

(and £1,000 duty allowance)                                                                  £3,000

Private Secretary and A.D.C., Capt. F.A.Hopkins, M.B.E.                             £630

Principal Assistant Chief Secretary, Maj E.A.T.Dutton, O.B.E.                    £1000

Attorney-General, Hon. F.Gordon Smith                                                     £1300

Treasurer and Commissioner of Taxes, Hon. C.H.Dobree, C.B.E.               £1200

Secretary for Native Affairs, Hon. J.M.Thomson                                          £1200

Director of Medical and Sanitary Services, Hon. P.H.Ward                           £1300

Judge of the High Court, (vacant).                                                              £1750

Director of Animal Health

           (and Acting Secretary for Agriculture), Hon. J.Smith                          £1200

Commandant, Northern Rhodesia Police

(and Chief Commissioner of Police), Lt-Col. E.G.Dickinson,                          £1200

Director of Surveys, Hon. W.G.Fairweather                                               £1,050

Secretary for Mines, A.C.Vivian, D.Sc.                                                          £1,000

Director of Public Works, F.A.Buckley                                                           £1,000

Comptroller of Customs, E.S.Marillier                                                          £1,000

Postmaster General, (vacant).                                                                    £1,000

Director of European Education, J.B.Clark                                                      £960

Director of Native Education, G.C.Latham                                                      £960

Auditor, J.B.Hewlett                                                                                        £960

Provincial Commissioners and Magistrates,

C.R.Rennie;

E.B.H.Goodall, M.B.E.;

C.R.B.Draper, M.B.E.;

H.G.Willis;

E.Sharpe;

R.H.Palmer;

C.F.Molineux;

J.W.Hinds;

A.W.M.S.Griffin, M.C.                                              (2) £1,100;   (7) £1,000

Trade Enquiry Office in London:-

The Commissioner,

32, Cockspur Street,

London, S.W.I.

NORTHERN RHODESIAN TAXATION

FROM OUR OWN CORRESPOMDENT

BULAWAYO, Nov. 21

A request by an elected member of the Northern Rhodesian Legislative Council for information in regard to the gazetted financial statement was met by the reply that information was refused, on the ground that an elected member was not entitled to it by right, this view was confirmed during a discussion in the Legislative Council. The elected members have now moved: –

This Council requests the Secretary of State for the Colonies to rule whether or not elected members are at all times entitled to information concerning gazetted financial statements.

The Government has withdrawn the Income-Tax Bill, promising to hold an enquiry into the whole field of taxation.

On the reverse:-

will shine tomorrow and birds will sing.”

It is known that Dr Sprague is prepared without delay to contribute to that “aroused and organised public opinion” which he believes to be the only defence against “drift into unrestrained inflation.” He has not refused invitations of “sound picture” operators, he will write, and he will speak in public. Those who know him know also that he will debate upon a plane above personal feeling in spite of the curious lack of consideration with which he – to say nothing of Mr Dean Aitchison – has been treated.

When the former adviser to the Bank of England was persuaded to join the service of his own country it was considered within the administration quite a “/,” since he “would bring us the dope about what those fellows over there are doing.” As a commentary upon this there is the Prof’s admission that since his return in July from the abortive economic conference

THE TIMES, 21 November, 1933

Mongu.

Nov: 22^nd 1933

(not air) recd Dec 27 i.e. 5 weeks

My dear Mummy,

Two letters from you & Daddy this week – one by ordinary mail & one by our mail posted a week later. I don’t think as it only makes a week’s difference (& that may not be regularly so) that it’s worth using the airmail especially as it’s so much more expensive. I sent you a long wire that I was going to Mankoya as I found I could send 25 words for 14/7, so I made the best of it. Two or three days later I got your answer which had only taken 1½ days to come! Mankoya is at least 5 days journey from here, & therefore at least 5 days from the nearest Dr which is a pity. I start off about December 5, so I shan’t be here for Xmas.

Thank you very much for the “History of the War” by Winston Churchill, which is just what I was wanting. (You understamped it a lot though!)

I have been out snipe shooting here again & we had great fun & got 9 brace of snipe & 2½ brace of wild duck of which my share was three brace of snipe & a duck. The snipe are continuing to come in on the great plain below the hill, which will flood all over later on.

Now I must try & tell you something about my journey up here. I left Livingstone & motored out to a place called Katombora by lorry taking with me all the staff I had left Mpika which had arrived early that morning & which I had had no opportunity of looking at. The things I had brought out with me this time & the food supplies I had bought in Livingstone had gone on ahead the day before. It was very hot on the lorry & I was more than ready for some tea when I arrived, but the agent at Katombora simply took me down to the river, weighed all my loads & left me to my own devices about 5 o’clock. I had got a tent, etc., to take up with me, but I then had an appalling search for the things I wanted that night. As my boys had packed for me when I left Mpika and were not there with me, I hadn’t the faintest idea where anything was! I found the camp bed all right, & got out the new blankets from the box you & I packed them in. By that time the tent was up & the Cook I had temporarily engaged in Livingstone had produced some tea. It was getting task & I was suddenly beset by swarms of mosquitoes & realise that I hadn’t got out the mosquito net & in fact had no idea where it was! I feverishly[1] began to try & unlock my old uniform cases thinking it would be there, but though the keys turned in the locks, only one of the three would open, (I have since had to force the locks of the other two), & that hadn’t got the mosquito net in it. I was then nearly frantic with bites, & had no light but a candle & torch! However I bethought me of my tin Bath, opened it & to my great joy there was the net. I immediately got inside it in my bed & had it put up with me within & all was well. It wasn’t till 4 or 5 days later that I ran my sheets to ground! & In fact I went on finding things I wanted from day to day as we went along !!

Next morning I loaded up & started off up the Zambezi in a barge. The barges made of wood in planks, & is not a canoe at all. It held me & all my loads (weight about 3500 lbs) & my two new boys & about 18 paddlers & a messenger lent to me by Wickens. I found a good stack of books waiting for me at Livingstone which I had ordered through Walters so I had plenty to read. I also did a certain amount of fishing with a rod & tackle I bought in Livingstone, & I caught quite a number of Tiger fish of from 2 to 5 or 6 lbs & had a lot of fun out of it, for they fight very well indeed. I used spoon bait or a spinner & stood at the end of the barge as we went along. I also caught2 big bream which didn’t put up much of a fight, but were very good to eat. Tiger fish are very poor eating.

The country was very dull for the first two or three days with beds of papyrus on each side of the river, & the mainland a long way back. One morning early I saw a lot of game on the far bank of the river to my camp so I went out for an hour or two to try my new rifle. The first shot I had I slew a reedbuck, so was very pleased.

Next day I arrived at Sesheke, the first Boma since living stone & in Barotse land. It was in charge of P.D. Thomas who came out the year after I did, but in February Howe[2] goes there from Livingstone. I got there about 4 o’clock & spent the night there & went off about 12 next day. I got rather a shock as Thomas suggested I should put up a tent instead of putting me up himself exhibition mark

I must stop now as the post is going.

Much love to you all

Your v. Loving

G.