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    TracyTracy
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      From Tanganyika with Love

      continued part 9

      With thanks to Mike Rushby.

      Lyamungu 3rd January 1945

      Dearest Family.

      We had a novel Christmas this year. We decided to avoid the expense of
      entertaining and being entertained at Lyamungu, and went off to spend Christmas
      camping in a forest on the Western slopes of Kilimanjaro. George decided to combine
      business with pleasure and in this way we were able to use Government transport.
      We set out the day before Christmas day and drove along the road which skirts
      the slopes of Kilimanjaro and first visited a beautiful farm where Philip Teare, the ex
      Game Warden, and his wife Mary are staying. We had afternoon tea with them and then
      drove on in to the natural forest above the estate and pitched our tent beside a small
      clear mountain stream. We decorated the tent with paper streamers and a few small
      balloons and John found a small tree of the traditional shape which we decorated where
      it stood with tinsel and small ornaments.

      We put our beer, cool drinks for the children and bottles of fresh milk from Simba
      Estate, in the stream and on Christmas morning they were as cold as if they had been in
      the refrigerator all night. There were not many presents for the children, there never are,
      but they do not seem to mind and are well satisfied with a couple of balloons apiece,
      sweets, tin whistles and a book each.

      George entertain the children before breakfast. He can make a magical thing out
      of the most ordinary balloon. The children watched entranced as he drew on his pipe
      and then blew the smoke into the balloon. He then pinched the neck of the balloon
      between thumb and forefinger and released the smoke in little puffs. Occasionally the
      balloon ejected a perfect smoke ring and the forest rang with shouts of “Do it again
      Daddy.” Another trick was to blow up the balloon to maximum size and then twist the
      neck tightly before releasing. Before subsiding the balloon darted about in a crazy
      fashion causing great hilarity. Such fun, at the cost of a few pence.

      After breakfast George went off to fish for trout. John and Jim decided that they
      also wished to fish so we made rods out of sticks and string and bent pins and they
      fished happily, but of course quite unsuccessfully, for hours. Both of course fell into the
      stream and got soaked, but I was prepared for this, and the little stream was so shallow
      that they could not come to any harm. Henry played happily in the sand and I had a
      most peaceful morning.

      Hamisi roasted a chicken in a pot over the camp fire and the jelly set beautifully in the
      stream. So we had grilled trout and chicken for our Christmas dinner. I had of course
      taken an iced cake for the occasion and, all in all, it was a very successful Christmas day.
      On Boxing day we drove down to the plains where George was to investigate a
      report of game poaching near the Ngassari Furrow. This is a very long ditch which has
      been dug by the Government for watering the Masai stock in the area. It is also used by
      game and we saw herds of zebra and wildebeest, and some Grant’s Gazelle and
      giraffe, all comparatively tame. At one point a small herd of zebra raced beside the lorry
      apparently enjoying the fun of a gallop. They were all sleek and fat and looked wild and
      beautiful in action.

      We camped a considerable distance from the water but this precaution did not
      save us from the mosquitoes which launched a vicious attack on us after sunset, so that
      we took to our beds unusually early. They were on the job again when we got up at
      sunrise so I was very glad when we were once more on our way home.

      “I like Christmas safari. Much nicer that silly old party,” said John. I agree but I think
      it is time that our children learned to play happily with others. There are no other young
      children at Lyamungu though there are two older boys and a girl who go to boarding
      school in Nairobi.

      On New Years Day two Army Officers from the military camp at Moshi, came for
      tea and to talk game hunting with George. I think they rather enjoy visiting a home and
      seeing children and pets around.

      Eleanor.

      Lyamungu 14 May 1945

      Dearest Family.

      So the war in Europe is over at last. It is such marvellous news that I can hardly
      believe it. To think that as soon as George can get leave we will go to England and
      bring Ann and George home with us to Tanganyika. When we know when this leave can
      be arranged we will want Kate to join us here as of course she must go with us to
      England to meet George’s family. She has become so much a part of your lives that I
      know it will be a wrench for you to give her up but I know that you will all be happy to
      think that soon our family will be reunited.

      The V.E. celebrations passed off quietly here. We all went to Moshi to see the
      Victory Parade of the King’s African Rifles and in the evening we went to a celebration
      dinner at the Game Warden’s house. Besides ourselves the Moores had invited the
      Commanding Officer from Moshi and a junior officer. We had a very good dinner and
      many toasts including one to Mrs Moore’s brother, Oliver Milton who is fighting in Burma
      and has recently been awarded the Military Cross.

      There was also a celebration party for the children in the grounds of the Moshi
      Club. Such a spread! I think John and Jim sampled everything. We mothers were
      having our tea separately and a friend laughingly told me to turn around and have a look.
      I did, and saw the long tea tables now deserted by all the children but my two sons who
      were still eating steadily, and finding the party more exciting than the game of Musical
      Bumps into which all the other children had entered with enthusiasm.

      There was also an extremely good puppet show put on by the Italian prisoners
      of war from the camp at Moshi. They had made all the puppets which included well
      loved characters like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and the Babes in the Wood as
      well as more sophisticated ones like an irritable pianist and a would be prima donna. The
      most popular puppets with the children were a native askari and his family – a very
      happy little scene. I have never before seen a puppet show and was as entranced as
      the children. It is amazing what clever manipulation and lighting can do. I believe that the
      Italians mean to take their puppets to Nairobi and am glad to think that there, they will
      have larger audiences to appreciate their art.

      George has just come in, and I paused in my writing to ask him for the hundredth
      time when he thinks we will get leave. He says I must be patient because it may be a
      year before our turn comes. Shipping will be disorganised for months to come and we
      cannot expect priority simply because we have been separated so long from our
      children. The same situation applies to scores of other Government Officials.
      I have decided to write the story of my childhood in South Africa and about our
      life together in Tanganyika up to the time Ann and George left the country. I know you
      will have told Kate these stories, but Ann and George were so very little when they left
      home that I fear that they cannot remember much.

      My Mother-in-law will have told them about their father but she can tell them little
      about me. I shall send them one chapter of my story each month in the hope that they
      may be interested and not feel that I am a stranger when at last we meet again.

      Eleanor.

      Lyamungu 19th September 1945

      Dearest Family.

      In a months time we will be saying good-bye to Lyamungu. George is to be
      transferred to Mbeya and I am delighted, not only as I look upon Mbeya as home, but
      because there is now a primary school there which John can attend. I feel he will make
      much better progress in his lessons when he realises that all children of his age attend
      school. At present he is putting up a strong resistance to learning to read and spell, but
      he writes very neatly, does his sums accurately and shows a real talent for drawing. If
      only he had the will to learn I feel he would do very well.

      Jim now just four, is too young for lessons but too intelligent to be interested in
      the ayah’s attempts at entertainment. Yes I’ve had to engage a native girl to look after
      Henry from 9 am to 12.30 when I supervise John’s Correspondence Course. She is
      clean and amiable, but like most African women she has no initiative at all when it comes
      to entertaining children. Most African men and youths are good at this.

      I don’t regret our stay at Lyamungu. It is a beautiful spot and the change to the
      cooler climate after the heat of Morogoro has been good for all the children. John is still
      tall for his age but not so thin as he was and much less pale. He is a handsome little lad
      with his large brown eyes in striking contrast to his fair hair. He is wary of strangers but
      very observant and quite uncanny in the way he sums up people. He seldom gets up
      to mischief but I have a feeling he eggs Jim on. Not that Jim needs egging.

      Jim has an absolute flair for mischief but it is all done in such an artless manner that
      it is not easy to punish him. He is a very sturdy child with a cap of almost black silky hair,
      eyes brown, like mine, and a large mouth which is quick to smile and show most beautiful
      white and even teeth. He is most popular with all the native servants and the Game
      Scouts. The servants call Jim, ‘Bwana Tembo’ (Mr Elephant) because of his sturdy
      build.

      Henry, now nearly two years old, is quite different from the other two in
      appearance. He is fair complexioned and fair haired like Ann and Kate, with large, black
      lashed, light grey eyes. He is a good child, not so merry as Jim was at his age, nor as
      shy as John was. He seldom cries, does not care to be cuddled and is independent and
      strong willed. The servants call Henry, ‘Bwana Ndizi’ (Mr Banana) because he has an
      inexhaustible appetite for this fruit. Fortunately they are very inexpensive here. We buy
      an entire bunch which hangs from a beam on the back verandah, and pluck off the
      bananas as they ripen. This way there is no waste and the fruit never gets bruised as it
      does in greengrocers shops in South Africa. Our three boys make a delightful and
      interesting trio and I do wish you could see them for yourselves.

      We are delighted with the really beautiful photograph of Kate. She is an
      extraordinarily pretty child and looks so happy and healthy and a great credit to you.
      Now that we will be living in Mbeya with a school on the doorstep I hope that we will
      soon be able to arrange for her return home.

      Eleanor.

      c/o Game Dept. Mbeya. 30th October 1945

      Dearest Family.

      How nice to be able to write c/o Game Dept. Mbeya at the head of my letters.
      We arrived here safely after a rather tiresome journey and are installed in a tiny house on
      the edge of the township.

      We left Lyamungu early on the morning of the 22nd. Most of our goods had
      been packed on the big Ford lorry the previous evening, but there were the usual
      delays and farewells. Of our servants, only the cook, Hamisi, accompanied us to
      Mbeya. Japhet, Tovelo and the ayah had to be paid off and largesse handed out.
      Tovelo’s granny had come, bringing a gift of bananas, and she also brought her little
      granddaughter to present a bunch of flowers. The child’s little scolded behind is now
      completely healed. Gifts had to be found for them too.

      At last we were all aboard and what a squash it was! Our few pieces of furniture
      and packing cases and trunks, the cook, his wife, the driver and the turney boy, who
      were to take the truck back to Lyamungu, and all their bits and pieces, bunches of
      bananas and Fanny the dog were all crammed into the body of the lorry. George, the
      children and I were jammed together in the cab. Before we left George looked
      dubiously at the tyres which were very worn and said gloomily that he thought it most
      unlikely that we would make our destination, Dodoma.

      Too true! Shortly after midday, near Kwakachinja, we blew a back tyre and there
      was a tedious delay in the heat whilst the wheel was changed. We were now without a
      spare tyre and George said that he would not risk taking the Ford further than Babati,
      which is less than half way to Dodoma. He drove very slowly and cautiously to Babati
      where he arranged with Sher Mohammed, an Indian trader, for a lorry to take us to
      Dodoma the next morning.

      It had been our intention to spend the night at the furnished Government
      Resthouse at Babati but when we got there we found that it was already occupied by
      several District Officers who had assembled for a conference. So, feeling rather
      disgruntled, we all piled back into the lorry and drove on to a place called Bereku where
      we spent an uncomfortable night in a tumbledown hut.

      Before dawn next morning Sher Mohammed’s lorry drove up, and there was a
      scramble to dress by the light of a storm lamp. The lorry was a very dilapidated one and
      there was already a native woman passenger in the cab. I felt so tired after an almost
      sleepless night that I decided to sit between the driver and this woman with the sleeping
      Henry on my knee. It was as well I did, because I soon found myself dosing off and
      drooping over towards the woman. Had she not been there I might easily have fallen
      out as the battered cab had no door. However I was alert enough when daylight came
      and changed places with the woman to our mutual relief. She was now able to converse
      with the African driver and I was able to enjoy the scenery and the fresh air!
      George, John and Jim were less comfortable. They sat in the lorry behind the
      cab hemmed in by packing cases. As the lorry was an open one the sun beat down
      unmercifully upon them until George, ever resourceful, moved a table to the front of the
      truck. The two boys crouched under this and so got shelter from the sun but they still had
      to endure the dust. Fanny complicated things by getting car sick and with one thing and
      another we were all jolly glad to get to Dodoma.

      We spent the night at the Dodoma Hotel and after hot baths, a good meal and a
      good nights rest we cheerfully boarded a bus of the Tanganyika Bus Service next
      morning to continue our journey to Mbeya. The rest of the journey was uneventful. We slept two nights on the road, the first at Iringa Hotel and the second at Chimala. We
      reached Mbeya on the 27th.

      I was rather taken aback when I first saw the little house which has been allocated
      to us. I had become accustomed to the spacious houses we had in Morogoro and
      Lyamungu. However though the house is tiny it is secluded and has a long garden
      sloping down to the road in front and another long strip sloping up behind. The front
      garden is shaded by several large cypress and eucalyptus trees but the garden behind
      the house has no shade and consists mainly of humpy beds planted with hundreds of
      carnations sadly in need of debudding. I believe that the previous Game Ranger’s wife
      cultivated the carnations and, by selling them, raised money for War Funds.
      Like our own first home, this little house is built of sun dried brick. Its original
      owners were Germans. It is now rented to the Government by the Custodian of Enemy
      Property, and George has his office in another ex German house.

      This afternoon we drove to the school to arrange about enrolling John there. The
      school is about four miles out of town. It was built by the German settlers in the late
      1930’s and they were justifiably proud of it. It consists of a great assembly hall and
      classrooms in one block and there are several attractive single storied dormitories. This
      school was taken over by the Government when the Germans were interned on the
      outbreak of war and many improvements have been made to the original buildings. The
      school certainly looks very attractive now with its grassed playing fields and its lawns and
      bright flower beds.

      The Union Jack flies from a tall flagpole in front of the Hall and all traces of the
      schools German origin have been firmly erased. We met the Headmaster, Mr
      Wallington, and his wife and some members of the staff. The school is co-educational
      and caters for children from the age of seven to standard six. The leaving age is elastic
      owing to the fact that many Tanganyika children started school very late because of lack
      of educational facilities in this country.

      The married members of the staff have their own cottages in the grounds. The
      Matrons have quarters attached to the dormitories for which they are responsible. I felt
      most enthusiastic about the school until I discovered that the Headmaster is adamant
      upon one subject. He utterly refuses to take any day pupils at the school. So now our
      poor reserved Johnny will have to adjust himself to boarding school life.
      We have arranged that he will start school on November 5th and I shall be very
      busy trying to assemble his school uniform at short notice. The clothing list is sensible.
      Boys wear khaki shirts and shorts on weekdays with knitted scarlet jerseys when the
      weather is cold. On Sundays they wear grey flannel shorts and blazers with the silver
      and scarlet school tie.

      Mbeya looks dusty, brown and dry after the lush evergreen vegetation of
      Lyamungu, but I prefer this drier climate and there are still mountains to please the eye.
      In fact the lower slopes of Lolesa Mountain rise at the upper end of our garden.

      Eleanor.

      c/o Game Dept. Mbeya. 21st November 1945

      Dearest Family.

      We’re quite settled in now and I have got the little house fixed up to my
      satisfaction. I have engaged a rather uncouth looking houseboy but he is strong and
      capable and now that I am not tied down in the mornings by John’s lessons I am able to
      go out occasionally in the mornings and take Jim and Henry to play with other children.
      They do not show any great enthusiasm but are not shy by nature as John is.
      I have had a good deal of heartache over putting John to boarding school. It
      would have been different had he been used to the company of children outside his
      own family, or if he had even known one child there. However he seems to be adjusting
      himself to the life, though slowly. At least he looks well and tidy and I am quite sure that
      he is well looked after.

      I must confess that when the time came for John to go to school I simply did not
      have the courage to take him and he went alone with George, looking so smart in his
      new uniform – but his little face so bleak. The next day, Sunday, was visiting day but the
      Headmaster suggested that we should give John time to settle down and not visit him
      until Wednesday.

      When we drove up to the school I spied John on the far side of the field walking
      all alone. Instead of running up with glad greetings, as I had expected, he came almost
      reluctently and had little to say. I asked him to show me his dormitory and classroom and
      he did so politely as though I were a stranger. At last he volunteered some information.
      “Mummy,” he said in an awed voice, Do you know on the night I came here they burnt a
      man! They had a big fire and they burnt him.” After a blank moment the penny dropped.
      Of course John had started school and November the fifth but it had never entered my
      head to tell him about that infamous character, Guy Fawkes!

      I asked John’s Matron how he had settled down. “Well”, she said thoughtfully,
      John is very good and has not cried as many of the juniors do when they first come
      here, but he seems to keep to himself all the time.” I went home very discouraged but
      on the Sunday John came running up with another lad of about his own age.” This is my
      friend Marks,” he announced proudly. I could have hugged Marks.

      Mbeya is very different from the small settlement we knew in the early 1930’s.
      Gone are all the colourful characters from the Lupa diggings for the alluvial claims are all
      worked out now, gone also are our old friends the Menzies from the Pub and also most
      of the Government Officials we used to know. Mbeya has lost its character of a frontier
      township and has become almost suburban.

      The social life revolves around two places, the Club and the school. The Club
      which started out as a little two roomed building, has been expanded and the golf
      course improved. There are also tennis courts and a good library considering the size of
      the community. There are frequent parties and dances, though most of the club revenue
      comes from Bar profits. The parties are relatively sober affairs compared with the parties
      of the 1930’s.

      The school provides entertainment of another kind. Both Mr and Mrs Wallington
      are good amateur actors and I am told that they run an Amateur Dramatic Society. Every
      Wednesday afternoon there is a hockey match at the school. Mbeya town versus a
      mixed team of staff and scholars. The match attracts almost the whole European
      population of Mbeya. Some go to play hockey, others to watch, and others to snatch
      the opportunity to visit their children. I shall have to try to arrange a lift to school when
      George is away on safari.

      I have now met most of the local women and gladly renewed an old friendship
      with Sheilagh Waring whom I knew two years ago at Morogoro. Sheilagh and I have
      much in common, the same disregard for the trappings of civilisation, the same sense of
      the ludicrous, and children. She has eight to our six and she has also been cut off by the
      war from two of her children. Sheilagh looks too young and pretty to be the mother of so
      large a family and is, in fact, several years younger than I am. her husband, Donald, is a
      large quiet man who, as far as I can judge takes life seriously.

      Our next door neighbours are the Bank Manager and his wife, a very pleasant
      couple though we seldom meet. I have however had correspondence with the Bank
      Manager. Early on Saturday afternoon their houseboy brought a note. It informed me
      that my son was disturbing his rest by precipitating a heart attack. Was I aware that my
      son was about 30 feet up in a tree and balanced on a twig? I ran out and,sure enough,
      there was Jim, right at the top of the tallest eucalyptus tree. It would be the one with the
      mound of stones at the bottom! You should have heard me fluting in my most
      wheedling voice. “Sweets, Jimmy, come down slowly dear, I’ve some nice sweets for
      you.”

      I’ll bet that little story makes you smile. I remember how often you have told me
      how, as a child, I used to make your hearts turn over because I had no fear of heights
      and how I used to say, “But that is silly, I won’t fall.” I know now only too well, how you
      must have felt.

      Eleanor.

      c/o Game Dept. Mbeya. 14th January 1946

      Dearest Family.

      I hope that by now you have my telegram to say that Kate got home safely
      yesterday. It was wonderful to have her back and what a beautiful child she is! Kate
      seems to have enjoyed the train journey with Miss Craig, in spite of the tears she tells
      me she shed when she said good-bye to you. She also seems to have felt quite at
      home with the Hopleys at Salisbury. She flew from Salisbury in a small Dove aircraft
      and they had a smooth passage though Kate was a little airsick.

      I was so excited about her home coming! This house is so tiny that I had to turn
      out the little store room to make a bedroom for her. With a fresh coat of whitewash and
      pretty sprigged curtains and matching bedspread, borrowed from Sheilagh Waring, the
      tiny room looks most attractive. I had also iced a cake, made ice-cream and jelly and
      bought crackers for the table so that Kate’s home coming tea could be a proper little
      celebration.

      I was pleased with my preparations and then, a few hours before the plane was
      due, my crowned front tooth dropped out, peg and all! When my houseboy wants to
      describe something very tatty, he calls it “Second-hand Kabisa.” Kabisa meaning
      absolutely. That is an apt description of how I looked and felt. I decided to try some
      emergency dentistry. I think you know our nearest dentist is at Dar es Salaam five
      hundred miles away.

      First I carefully dried the tooth and with a match stick covered the peg and base
      with Durofix. I then took the infants rubber bulb enema, sucked up some heat from a
      candle flame and pumped it into the cavity before filling that with Durofix. Then hopefully
      I stuck the tooth in its former position and held it in place for several minutes. No good. I
      sent the houseboy to a shop for Scotine and tried the whole process again. No good
      either.

      When George came home for lunch I appealed to him for advice. He jokingly
      suggested that a maize seed jammed into the space would probably work, but when
      he saw that I really was upset he produced some chewing gum and suggested that I
      should try that . I did and that worked long enough for my first smile anyway.
      George and the three boys went to meet Kate but I remained at home to
      welcome her there. I was afraid that after all this time away Kate might be reluctant to
      rejoin the family but she threw her arms around me and said “Oh Mummy,” We both
      shed a few tears and then we both felt fine.

      How gay Kate is, and what an infectious laugh she has! The boys follow her
      around in admiration. John in fact asked me, “Is Kate a Princess?” When I said
      “Goodness no, Johnny, she’s your sister,” he explained himself by saying, “Well, she
      has such golden hair.” Kate was less complementary. When I tucked her in bed last night
      she said, “Mummy, I didn’t expect my little brothers to be so yellow!” All three boys
      have been taking a course of Atebrin, an anti-malarial drug which tinges skin and eyeballs
      yellow.

      So now our tiny house is bursting at its seams and how good it feels to have one
      more child under our roof. We are booked to sail for England in May and when we return
      we will have Ann and George home too. Then I shall feel really content.

      Eleanor.

      c/o Game Dept. Mbeya. 2nd March 1946

      Dearest Family.

      My life just now is uneventful but very busy. I am sewing hard and knitting fast to
      try to get together some warm clothes for our leave in England. This is not a simple
      matter because woollen materials are in short supply and very expensive, and now that
      we have boarding school fees to pay for both Kate and John we have to budget very
      carefully indeed.

      Kate seems happy at school. She makes friends easily and seems to enjoy
      communal life. John also seems reconciled to school now that Kate is there. He no
      longer feels that he is the only exile in the family. He seems to rub along with the other
      boys of his age and has a couple of close friends. Although Mbeya School is coeducational
      the smaller boys and girls keep strictly apart. It is considered extremely
      cissy to play with girls.

      The local children are allowed to go home on Sundays after church and may bring
      friends home with them for the day. Both John and Kate do this and Sunday is a very
      busy day for me. The children come home in their Sunday best but bring play clothes to
      change into. There is always a scramble to get them to bath and change again in time to
      deliver them to the school by 6 o’clock.

      When George is home we go out to the school for the morning service. This is
      taken by the Headmaster Mr Wallington, and is very enjoyable. There is an excellent
      school choir to lead the singing. The service is the Church of England one, but is
      attended by children of all denominations, except the Roman Catholics. I don’t think that
      more than half the children are British. A large proportion are Greeks, some as old as
      sixteen, and about the same number are Afrikaners. There are Poles and non-Nazi
      Germans, Swiss and a few American children.

      All instruction is through the medium of English and it is amazing how soon all the
      foreign children learn to chatter in English. George has been told that we will return to
      Mbeya after our leave and for that I am very thankful as it means that we will still be living
      near at hand when Jim and Henry start school. Because many of these children have to
      travel many hundreds of miles to come to school, – Mbeya is a two day journey from the
      railhead, – the school year is divided into two instead of the usual three terms. This
      means that many of these children do not see their parents for months at a time. I think
      this is a very sad state of affairs especially for the seven and eight year olds but the
      Matrons assure me , that many children who live on isolated farms and stations are quite
      reluctant to go home because they miss the companionship and the games and
      entertainment that the school offers.

      My only complaint about the life here is that I see far too little of George. He is
      kept extremely busy on this range and is hardly at home except for a few days at the
      months end when he has to be at his office to check up on the pay vouchers and the
      issue of ammunition to the Scouts. George’s Range takes in the whole of the Southern
      Province and the Southern half of the Western Province and extends to the border with
      Northern Rhodesia and right across to Lake Tanganyika. This vast area is patrolled by
      only 40 Game Scouts because the Department is at present badly under staffed, due
      partly to the still acute shortage of rifles, but even more so to the extraordinary reluctance
      which the Government shows to allocate adequate funds for the efficient running of the
      Department.

      The Game Scouts must see that the Game Laws are enforced, protect native
      crops from raiding elephant, hippo and other game animals. Report disease amongst game and deal with stock raiding lions. By constantly going on safari and checking on
      their work, George makes sure the range is run to his satisfaction. Most of the Game
      Scouts are fine fellows but, considering they receive only meagre pay for dangerous
      and exacting work, it is not surprising that occasionally a Scout is tempted into accepting
      a bribe not to report a serious infringement of the Game Laws and there is, of course,
      always the temptation to sell ivory illicitly to unscrupulous Indian and Arab traders.
      Apart from supervising the running of the Range, George has two major jobs.
      One is to supervise the running of the Game Free Area along the Rhodesia –
      Tanganyika border, and the other to hunt down the man-eating lions which for years have
      terrorised the Njombe District killing hundreds of Africans. Yes I know ‘hundreds’ sounds
      fantastic, but this is perfectly true and one day, when the job is done and the official
      report published I shall send it to you to prove it!

      I hate to think of the Game Free Area and so does George. All the game from
      buffalo to tiny duiker has been shot out in a wide belt extending nearly two hundred
      miles along the Northern Rhodesia -Tanganyika border. There are three Europeans in
      widely spaced camps who supervise this slaughter by African Game Guards. This
      horrible measure is considered necessary by the Veterinary Departments of
      Tanganyika, Rhodesia and South Africa, to prevent the cattle disease of Rinderpest
      from spreading South.

      When George is home however, we do relax and have fun. On the Saturday
      before the school term started we took Kate and the boys up to the top fishing camp in
      the Mporoto Mountains for her first attempt at trout fishing. There are three of these
      camps built by the Mbeya Trout Association on the rivers which were first stocked with
      the trout hatched on our farm at Mchewe. Of the three, the top camp is our favourite. The
      scenery there is most glorious and reminds me strongly of the rivers of the Western
      Cape which I so loved in my childhood.

      The river, the Kawira, flows from the Rungwe Mountain through a narrow valley
      with hills rising steeply on either side. The water runs swiftly over smooth stones and
      sometimes only a foot or two below the level of the banks. It is sparkling and shallow,
      but in places the water is deep and dark and the banks high. I had a busy day keeping
      an eye on the boys, especially Jim, who twice climbed out on branches which overhung
      deep water. “Mummy, I was only looking for trout!”

      How those kids enjoyed the freedom of the camp after the comparative
      restrictions of town. So did Fanny, she raced about on the hills like a mad dog chasing
      imaginary rabbits and having the time of her life. To escape the noise and commotion
      George had gone far upstream to fish and returned in the late afternoon with three good
      sized trout and four smaller ones. Kate proudly showed George the two she had caught
      with the assistance or our cook Hamisi. I fear they were caught in a rather unorthodox
      manner but this I kept a secret from George who is a stickler for the orthodox in trout
      fishing.

      Eleanor.

      Jacksdale England 24th June 1946

      Dearest Family.

      Here we are all together at last in England. You cannot imagine how wonderful it
      feels to have the whole Rushby family reunited. I find myself counting heads. Ann,
      George, Kate, John, Jim, and Henry. All present and well. We had a very pleasant trip
      on the old British India Ship Mantola. She was crowded with East Africans going home
      for the first time since the war, many like us, eagerly looking forward to a reunion with their
      children whom they had not seen for years. There was a great air of anticipation and
      good humour but a little anxiety too.

      “I do hope our children will be glad to see us,” said one, and went on to tell me
      about a Doctor from Dar es Salaam who, after years of separation from his son had
      recently gone to visit him at his school. The Doctor had alighted at the railway station
      where he had arranged to meet his son. A tall youth approached him and said, very
      politely, “Excuse me sir. Are you my Father?” Others told me of children who had
      become so attached to their relatives in England that they gave their parents a very cool
      reception. I began to feel apprehensive about Ann and George but fortunately had no
      time to mope.

      Oh, that washing and ironing for six! I shall remember for ever that steamy little
      laundry in the heat of the Red Sea and queuing up for the ironing and the feeling of guilt
      at the size of my bundle. We met many old friends amongst the passengers, and made
      some new ones, so the voyage was a pleasant one, We did however have our
      anxious moments.

      John was the first to disappear and we had an anxious search for him. He was
      quite surprised that we had been concerned. “I was just talking to my friend Chinky
      Chinaman in his workshop.” Could John have called him that? Then, when I returned to
      the cabin from dinner one night I found Henry swigging Owbridge’s Lung Tonic. He had
      drunk half the bottle neat and the label said ‘five drops in water’. Luckily it did not harm
      him.

      Jim of course was forever risking his neck. George had forbidden him to climb on
      the railings but he was forever doing things which no one had thought of forbidding him
      to do, like hanging from the overhead pipes on the deck or standing on the sill of a
      window and looking down at the well deck far below. An Officer found him doing this and
      gave me the scolding.

      Another day he climbed up on a derrick used for hoisting cargo. George,
      oblivious to this was sitting on the hatch cover with other passengers reading a book. I
      was in the wash house aft on the same deck when Kate rushed in and said, “Mummy
      come and see Jim.” Before I had time to more than gape, the butcher noticed Jim and
      rushed out knife in hand. “Get down from there”, he bellowed. Jim got, and with such
      speed that he caught the leg or his shorts on a projecting piece of metal. The cotton
      ripped across the seam from leg to leg and Jim stood there for a humiliating moment in a
      sort of revealing little kilt enduring the smiles of the passengers who had looked up from
      their books at the butcher’s shout.

      That incident cured Jim of his urge to climb on the ship but he managed to give
      us one more fright. He was lost off Dover. People from whom we enquired said, “Yes
      we saw your little boy. He was by the railings watching that big aircraft carrier.” Now Jim,
      though mischievous , is very obedient. It was not until George and I had conducted an
      exhaustive search above and below decks that I really became anxious. Could he have
      fallen overboard? Jim was returned to us by an unamused Officer. He had been found
      in one of the lifeboats on the deck forbidden to children.

      Our ship passed Dover after dark and it was an unforgettable sight. Dover Castle
      and the cliffs were floodlit for the Victory Celebrations. One of the men passengers sat
      down at the piano and played ‘The White Cliffs of Dover’, and people sang and a few
      wept. The Mantola docked at Tilbury early next morning in a steady drizzle.
      There was a dockers strike on and it took literally hours for all the luggage to be
      put ashore. The ships stewards simply locked the public rooms and went off leaving the
      passengers shivering on the docks. Eventually damp and bedraggled, we arrived at St
      Pancras Station and were given a warm welcome by George’s sister Cath and her
      husband Reg Pears, who had come all the way from Nottingham to meet us.
      As we had to spend an hour in London before our train left for Nottingham,
      George suggested that Cath and I should take the children somewhere for a meal. So
      off we set in the cold drizzle, the boys and I without coats and laden with sundry
      packages, including a hand woven native basket full of shoes. We must have looked like
      a bunch of refugees as we stood in the hall of The Kings Cross Station Hotel because a
      supercilious waiter in tails looked us up and down and said, “I’m afraid not Madam”, in
      answer to my enquiry whether the hotel could provide lunch for six.
      Anyway who cares! We had lunch instead at an ABC tea room — horrible
      sausage and a mound or rather sloppy mashed potatoes, but very good ice-cream.
      After the train journey in a very grimy third class coach, through an incredibly green and
      beautiful countryside, we eventually reached Nottingham and took a bus to Jacksdale,
      where George’s mother and sisters live in large detached houses side by side.
      Ann and George were at the bus stop waiting for us, and thank God, submitted
      to my kiss as though we had been parted for weeks instead of eight years. Even now
      that we are together again my heart aches to think of all those missed years. They have
      not changed much and I would have picked them out of a crowd, but Ann, once thin and
      pale, is now very rosy and blooming. She still has her pretty soft plaits and her eyes are
      still a clear calm blue. Young George is very striking looking with sparkling brown eyes, a
      ready, slightly lopsided smile, and charming manners.

      Mother, and George’s elder sister, Lottie Giles, welcomed us at the door with the
      cheering news that our tea was ready. Ann showed us the way to mother’s lovely lilac
      tiled bathroom for a wash before tea. Before I had even turned the tap, Jim had hung
      form the glass towel rail and it lay in three pieces on the floor. There have since been
      similar tragedies. I can see that life in civilisation is not without snags.

      I am most grateful that Ann and George have accepted us so naturally and
      affectionately. Ann said candidly, “Mummy, it’s a good thing that you had Aunt Cath with
      you when you arrived because, honestly, I wouldn’t have known you.”

      Eleanor.

      Jacksdale England 28th August 1946

      Dearest Family.

      I am sorry that I have not written for some time but honestly, I don’t know whether
      I’m coming or going. Mother handed the top floor of her house to us and the
      arrangement was that I should tidy our rooms and do our laundry and Mother would
      prepare the meals except for breakfast. It looked easy at first. All the rooms have wall to
      wall carpeting and there was a large vacuum cleaner in the box room. I was told a
      window cleaner would do the windows.

      Well the first time I used the Hoover I nearly died of fright. I pressed the switch
      and immediately there was a roar and the bag filled with air to bursting point, or so I
      thought. I screamed for Ann and she came at the run. I pointed to the bag and shouted
      above the din, “What must I do? It’s going to burst!” Ann looked at me in astonishment
      and said, “But Mummy that’s the way it works.” I couldn’t have her thinking me a
      complete fool so I switched the current off and explained to Ann how it was that I had
      never seen this type of equipment in action. How, in Tanganyika , I had never had a
      house with electricity and that, anyway, electric equipment would be superfluous
      because floors are of cement which the houseboy polishes by hand, one only has a
      few rugs or grass mats on the floor. “But what about Granny’s house in South Africa?’”
      she asked, so I explained about your Josephine who threatened to leave if you
      bought a Hoover because that would mean that you did not think she kept the house
      clean. The sad fact remains that, at fourteen, Ann knows far more about housework than I
      do, or rather did! I’m learning fast.

      The older children all go to school at different times in the morning. Ann leaves first
      by bus to go to her Grammar School at Sutton-in-Ashfield. Shortly afterwards George
      catches a bus for Nottingham where he attends the High School. So they have
      breakfast in relays, usually scrambled egg made from a revolting dried egg mixture.
      Then there are beds to make and washing and ironing to do, so I have little time for
      sightseeing, though on a few afternoons George has looked after the younger children
      and I have gone on bus tours in Derbyshire. Life is difficult here with all the restrictions on
      foodstuffs. We all have ration books so get our fair share but meat, fats and eggs are
      scarce and expensive. The weather is very wet. At first I used to hang out the washing
      and then rush to bring it in when a shower came. Now I just let it hang.

      We have left our imprint upon my Mother-in-law’s house for ever. Henry upset a
      bottle of Milk of Magnesia in the middle of the pale fawn bedroom carpet. John, trying to
      be helpful and doing some dusting, broke one of the delicate Dresden china candlesticks
      which adorn our bedroom mantelpiece.Jim and Henry have wrecked the once
      professionally landscaped garden and all the boys together bored a large hole through
      Mother’s prized cherry tree. So now Mother has given up and gone off to Bournemouth
      for a much needed holiday. Once a week I have the capable help of a cleaning woman,
      called for some reason, ‘Mrs Two’, but I have now got all the cooking to do for eight. Mrs
      Two is a godsend. She wears, of all things, a print mob cap with a hole in it. Says it
      belonged to her Grandmother. Her price is far beyond Rubies to me, not so much
      because she does, in a couple of hours, what it takes me all day to do, but because she
      sells me boxes of fifty cigarettes. Some non-smoking relative, who works in Players
      tobacco factory, passes on his ration to her. Until Mrs Two came to my rescue I had
      been starved of cigarettes. Each time I asked for them at the shop the grocer would say,
      “Are you registered with us?” Only very rarely would some kindly soul sell me a little
      packet of five Woodbines.

      England is very beautiful but the sooner we go home to Tanganyika, the better.
      On this, George and I and the children agree.

      Eleanor.

      Jacksdale England 20th September 1946

      Dearest Family.

      Our return passages have now been booked on the Winchester Castle and we
      sail from Southampton on October the sixth. I look forward to returning to Tanganyika but
      hope to visit England again in a few years time when our children are older and when
      rationing is a thing of the past.

      I have grown fond of my Sisters-in-law and admire my Mother-in-law very much.
      She has a great sense of humour and has entertained me with stories of her very
      eventful life, and told me lots of little stories of the children which did not figure in her
      letters. One which amused me was about young George. During one of the air raids
      early in the war when the sirens were screaming and bombers roaring overhead Mother
      made the two children get into the cloak cupboard under the stairs. Young George
      seemed quite unconcerned about the planes and the bombs but soon an anxious voice
      asked in the dark, “Gran, what will I do if a spider falls on me?” I am afraid that Mother is
      going to miss Ann and George very much.

      I had a holiday last weekend when Lottie and I went up to London on a spree. It
      was a most enjoyable weekend, though very rushed. We placed ourselves in the
      hands of Thos. Cook and Sons and saw most of the sights of London and were run off
      our feet in the process. As you all know London I shall not describe what I saw but just
      to say that, best of all, I enjoyed walking along the Thames embankment in the evening
      and the changing of the Guard at Whitehall. On Sunday morning Lottie and I went to
      Kew Gardens and in the afternoon walked in Kensington Gardens.

      We went to only one show, ‘The Skin of our Teeth’ starring Vivienne Leigh.
      Neither of us enjoyed the performance at all and regretted having spent so much on
      circle seats. The show was far too highbrow for my taste, a sort of satire on the survival
      of the human race. Miss Leigh was unrecognisable in a blond wig and her voice strident.
      However the night was not a dead loss as far as entertainment was concerned as we
      were later caught up in a tragicomedy at our hotel.

      We had booked communicating rooms at the enormous Imperial Hotel in Russell
      Square. These rooms were comfortably furnished but very high up, and we had a rather
      terrifying and dreary view from the windows of the enclosed courtyard far below. We
      had some snacks and a chat in Lottie’s room and then I moved to mine and went to bed.
      I had noted earlier that there was a special lock on the outer door of my room so that
      when the door was closed from the inside it automatically locked itself.
      I was just dropping off to sleep when I heard a hammering which seemed to
      come from my wardrobe. I got up, rather fearfully, and opened the wardrobe door and
      noted for the first time that the wardrobe was set in an opening in the wall and that the
      back of the wardrobe also served as the back of the wardrobe in the room next door. I
      quickly shut it again and went to confer with Lottie.

      Suddenly a male voice was raised next door in supplication, “Mary Mother of
      God, Help me! They’ve locked me in!” and the hammering resumed again, sometimes
      on the door, and then again on the back of the wardrobe of the room next door. Lottie
      had by this time joined me and together we listened to the prayers and to the
      hammering. Then the voice began to threaten, “If you don’t let me out I’ll jump out of the
      window.” Great consternation on our side of the wall. I went out into the passage and
      called through the door, “You’re not locked in. Come to your door and I’ll tell you how to
      open it.” Silence for a moment and then again the prayers followed by a threat. All the
      other doors in the corridor remained shut.

      Luckily just then a young man and a woman came walking down the corridor and I
      explained the situation. The young man hurried off for the night porter who went into the
      next door room. In a matter of minutes there was peace next door. When the night
      porter came out into the corridor again I asked for an explanation. He said quite casually,
      “It’s all right Madam. He’s an Irish Gentleman in Show Business. He gets like this on a
      Saturday night when he has had a drop too much. He won’t give any more trouble
      now.” And he didn’t. Next morning at breakfast Lottie and I tried to spot the gentleman in
      the Show Business, but saw no one who looked like the owner of that charming Irish
      voice.

      George had to go to London on business last Monday and took the older
      children with him for a few hours of sight seeing. They returned quite unimpressed.
      Everything was too old and dirty and there were far too many people about, but they
      had enjoyed riding on the escalators at the tube stations, and all agreed that the highlight
      of the trip was, “Dad took us to lunch at the Chicken Inn.”

      Now that it is almost time to leave England I am finding the housework less of a
      drudgery, Also, as it is school holiday time, Jim and Henry are able to go on walks with
      the older children and so use up some of their surplus energy. Cath and I took the
      children (except young George who went rabbit shooting with his uncle Reg, and
      Henry, who stayed at home with his dad) to the Wakes at Selston, the neighbouring
      village. There were the roundabouts and similar contraptions but the side shows had
      more appeal for the children. Ann and Kate found a stall where assorted prizes were
      spread out on a sloping table. Anyone who could land a penny squarely on one of
      these objects was given a similar one as a prize.

      I was touched to see that both girls ignored all the targets except a box of fifty
      cigarettes which they were determined to win for me. After numerous attempts, Kate
      landed her penny successfully and you would have loved to have seen her radiant little
      face.

      Eleanor.

      Dar es Salaam 22nd October 1946

      Dearest Family.

      Back in Tanganyika at last, but not together. We have to stay in Dar es Salaam
      until tomorrow when the train leaves for Dodoma. We arrived yesterday morning to find
      all the hotels filled with people waiting to board ships for England. Fortunately some
      friends came to the rescue and Ann, Kate and John have gone to stay with them. Jim,
      Henry and I are sleeping in a screened corner of the lounge of the New Africa Hotel, and
      George and young George have beds in the Palm Court of the same hotel.

      We travelled out from England in the Winchester Castle under troopship
      conditions. We joined her at Southampton after a rather slow train journey from
      Nottingham. We arrived after dark and from the station we could see a large ship in the
      docks with a floodlit red funnel. “Our ship,” yelled the children in delight, but it was not the
      Winchester Castle but the Queen Elizabeth, newly reconditioned.

      We had hoped to board our ship that evening but George made enquiries and
      found that we would not be allowed on board until noon next day. Without much hope,
      we went off to try to get accommodation for eight at a small hotel recommended by the
      taxi driver. Luckily for us there was a very motherly woman at the reception desk. She
      looked in amusement at the six children and said to me, “Goodness are all these yours,
      ducks? Then she called over her shoulder, “Wilf, come and see this lady with lots of
      children. We must try to help.” They settled the problem most satisfactorily by turning
      two rooms into a dormitory.

      In the morning we had time to inspect bomb damage in the dock area of
      Southampton. Most of the rubble had been cleared away but there are still numbers of
      damaged buildings awaiting demolition. A depressing sight. We saw the Queen Mary
      at anchor, still in her drab war time paint, but magnificent nevertheless.
      The Winchester Castle was crammed with passengers and many travelled in
      acute discomfort. We were luckier than most because the two girls, the three small boys
      and I had a stateroom to ourselves and though it was stripped of peacetime comforts,
      we had a private bathroom and toilet. The two Georges had bunks in a huge men-only
      dormitory somewhere in the bowls of the ship where they had to share communal troop
      ship facilities. The food was plentiful but unexciting and one had to queue for afternoon
      tea. During the day the decks were crowded and there was squatting room only. The
      many children on board got bored.

      Port Said provided a break and we were all entertained by the ‘Gully Gully’ man
      and his conjuring tricks, and though we had no money to spend at Simon Artz, we did at
      least have a chance to stretch our legs. Next day scores of passengers took ill with
      sever stomach upsets, whether from food poisoning, or as was rumoured, from bad
      water taken on at the Egyptian port, I don’t know. Only the two Georges in our family
      were affected and their attacks were comparatively mild.

      As we neared the Kenya port of Mombassa, the passengers for Dar es Salaam
      were told that they would have to disembark at Mombassa and continue their journey in
      a small coaster, the Al Said. The Winchester Castle is too big for the narrow channel
      which leads to Dar es Salaam harbour.

      From the wharf the Al Said looked beautiful. She was once the private yacht of
      the Sultan of Zanzibar and has lovely lines. Our admiration lasted only until we were
      shown our cabins. With one voice our children exclaimed, “Gosh they stink!” They did, of
      a mixture of rancid oil and sweat and stale urine. The beds were not yet made and the
      thin mattresses had ominous stains on them. John, ever fastidious, lifted his mattress and two enormous cockroaches scuttled for cover.

      We had a good homely lunch served by two smiling African stewards and
      afterwards we sat on deck and that was fine too, though behind ones enjoyment there
      was the thought of those stuffy and dirty cabins. That first night nearly everyone,
      including George and our older children, slept on deck. Women occupied deck chairs
      and men and children slept on the bare decks. Horrifying though the idea was, I decided
      that, as Jim had a bad cough, he, Henry and I would sleep in our cabin.

      When I announced my intention of sleeping in the cabin one of the passengers
      gave me some insecticide spray which I used lavishly, but without avail. The children
      slept but I sat up all night with the light on, determined to keep at least their pillows clear
      of the cockroaches which scurried about boldly regardless of the light. All the next day
      and night we avoided the cabins. The Al Said stopped for some hours at Zanzibar to
      offload her deck cargo of live cattle and packing cases from the hold. George and the
      elder children went ashore for a walk but I felt too lazy and there was plenty to watch
      from deck.

      That night I too occupied a deck chair and slept quite comfortably, and next
      morning we entered the palm fringed harbour of Dar es Salaam and were home.

      Eleanor.

      Mbeya 1st November 1946

      Dearest Family.

      Home at last! We are all most happily installed in a real family house about three
      miles out of Mbeya and near the school. This house belongs to an elderly German and
      has been taken over by the Custodian of Enemy Property and leased to the
      Government.

      The owner, whose name is Shenkel, was not interned but is allowed to occupy a
      smaller house on the Estate. I found him in the garden this morning lecturing the children
      on what they may do and may not do. I tried to make it quite clear to him that he was not
      our landlord, though he clearly thinks otherwise. After he had gone I had to take two
      aspirin and lie down to recover my composure! I had been warned that he has this effect
      on people.

      Mr Shenkel is a short and ugly man, his clothes are stained with food and he
      wears steel rimmed glasses tied round his head with a piece of dirty elastic because
      one earpiece is missing. He speaks with a thick German accent but his English is fluent
      and I believe he is a cultured and clever man. But he is maddening. The children were
      more amused than impressed by his exhortations and have happily Christened our
      home, ‘Old Shenks’.

      The house has very large grounds as the place is really a derelict farm. It suits us
      down to the ground. We had no sooner unpacked than George went off on safari after
      those maneating lions in the Njombe District. he accounted for one, and a further two
      jointly with a Game Scout, before we left for England. But none was shot during the five
      months we were away as George’s relief is quite inexperienced in such work. George
      thinks that there are still about a dozen maneaters at large. His theory is that a female
      maneater moved into the area in 1938 when maneating first started, and brought up her
      cubs to be maneaters, and those cubs in turn did the same. The three maneating lions
      that have been shot were all in very good condition and not old and maimed as
      maneaters usually are.

      George anticipates that it will be months before all these lions are accounted for
      because they are constantly on the move and cover a very large area. The lions have to
      be hunted on foot because they range over broken country covered by bush and fairly
      dense thicket.

      I did a bit of shooting myself yesterday and impressed our African servants and
      the children and myself. What a fluke! Our houseboy came to say that there was a snake
      in the garden, the biggest he had ever seen. He said it was too big to kill with a stick and
      would I shoot it. I had no gun but a heavy .450 Webley revolver and I took this and
      hurried out with the children at my heels.

      The snake turned out to be an unusually large puff adder which had just shed its
      skin. It looked beautiful in a repulsive way. So flanked by servants and children I took
      aim and shot, not hitting the head as I had planned, but breaking the snake’s back with
      the heavy bullet. The two native boys then rushed up with sticks and flattened the head.
      “Ma you’re a crack shot,” cried the kids in delighted surprise. I hope to rest on my laurels
      for a long, long while.

      Although there are only a few weeks of school term left the four older children will
      start school on Monday. Not only am I pleased with our new home here but also with
      the staff I have engaged. Our new houseboy, Reuben, (but renamed Robin by our
      children) is not only cheerful and willing but intelligent too, and Jumbe, the wood and
      garden boy, is a born clown and a source of great entertainment to the children.

      I feel sure that we are all going to be very happy here at ‘Old Shenks!.

      Eleanor.

      #6266
      TracyTracy
      Participant

        From Tanganyika with Love

        continued part 7

        With thanks to Mike Rushby.

        Oldeani Hospital. 19th September 1938

        Dearest Family,

        George arrived today to take us home to Mbulu but Sister Marianne will not allow
        me to travel for another week as I had a bit of a set back after baby’s birth. At first I was
        very fit and on the third day Sister stripped the bed and, dictionary in hand, started me
        off on ante natal exercises. “Now make a bridge Mrs Rushby. So. Up down, up down,’
        whilst I obediently hoisted myself aloft on heels and head. By the sixth day she
        considered it was time for me to be up and about but alas, I soon had to return to bed
        with a temperature and a haemorrhage. I got up and walked outside for the first time this
        morning.

        I have had lots of visitors because the local German settlers seem keen to see
        the first British baby born in the hospital. They have been most kind, sending flowers
        and little German cards of congratulations festooned with cherubs and rather sweet. Most
        of the women, besides being pleasant, are very smart indeed, shattering my illusion that
        German matrons are invariably fat and dowdy. They are all much concerned about the
        Czecko-Slovakian situation, especially Sister Marianne whose home is right on the
        border and has several relations who are Sudentan Germans. She is ant-Nazi and
        keeps on asking me whether I think England will declare war if Hitler invades Czecko-
        Slovakia, as though I had inside information.

        George tells me that he has had a grass ‘banda’ put up for us at Mbulu as we are
        both determined not to return to those prison-like quarters in the Fort. Sister Marianne is
        horrified at the idea of taking a new baby to live in a grass hut. She told George,
        “No,No,Mr Rushby. I find that is not to be allowed!” She is an excellent Sister but rather
        prim and George enjoys teasing her. This morning he asked with mock seriousness,
        “Sister, why has my wife not received her medal?” Sister fluttered her dictionary before
        asking. “What medal Mr Rushby”. “Why,” said George, “The medal that Hitler gives to
        women who have borne four children.” Sister started a long and involved explanation
        about the medal being only for German mothers whilst George looked at me and
        grinned.

        Later. Great Jubilation here. By the noise in Sister Marianne’s sitting room last night it
        sounded as though the whole German population had gathered to listen to the wireless
        news. I heard loud exclamations of joy and then my bedroom door burst open and
        several women rushed in. “Thank God “, they cried, “for Neville Chamberlain. Now there
        will be no war.” They pumped me by the hand as though I were personally responsible
        for the whole thing.

        George on the other hand is disgusted by Chamberlain’s lack of guts. Doesn’t
        know what England is coming to these days. I feel too content to concern myself with
        world affairs. I have a fine husband and four wonderful children and am happy, happy,
        happy.

        Eleanor.

        Mbulu. 30th September 1938

        Dearest Family,

        Here we are, comfortably installed in our little green house made of poles and
        rushes from a nearby swamp. The house has of course, no doors or windows, but
        there are rush blinds which roll up in the day time. There are two rooms and a little porch
        and out at the back there is a small grass kitchen.

        Here we have the privacy which we prize so highly as we are screened on one
        side by a Forest Department plantation and on the other three sides there is nothing but
        the rolling countryside cropped bare by the far too large herds of cattle and goats of the
        Wambulu. I have a lovely lazy time. I still have Kesho-Kutwa and the cook we brought
        with us from the farm. They are both faithful and willing souls though not very good at
        their respective jobs. As one of these Mbeya boys goes on safari with George whose
        job takes him from home for three weeks out of four, I have taken on a local boy to cut
        firewood and heat my bath water and generally make himself useful. His name is Saa,
        which means ‘Clock’

        We had an uneventful but very dusty trip from Oldeani. Johnny Jo travelled in his
        pram in the back of the boxbody and got covered in dust but seems none the worst for
        it. As the baby now takes up much of my time and Kate was showing signs of
        boredom, I have engaged a little African girl to come and play with Kate every morning.
        She is the daughter of the head police Askari and a very attractive and dignified little
        person she is. Her name is Kajyah. She is scrupulously clean, as all Mohammedan
        Africans seem to be. Alas, Kajyah, though beautiful, is a bore. She simply does not
        know how to play, so they just wander around hand in hand.

        There are only two drawbacks to this little house. Mbulu is a very windy spot so
        our little reed house is very draughty. I have made a little tent of sheets in one corner of
        the ‘bedroom’ into which I can retire with Johnny when I wish to bathe or sponge him.
        The other drawback is that many insects are attracted at night by the lamp and make it
        almost impossible to read or sew and they have a revolting habit of falling into the soup.
        There are no dangerous wild animals in this area so I am not at all nervous in this
        flimsy little house when George is on safari. Most nights hyaenas come around looking
        for scraps but our dogs, Fanny and Paddy, soon see them off.

        Eleanor.

        Mbulu. 25th October 1938

        Dearest Family,

        Great news! a vacancy has occurred in the Game Department. George is to
        transfer to it next month. There will be an increase in salary and a brighter prospect for
        the future. It will mean a change of scene and I shall be glad of that. We like Mbulu and
        the people here but the rains have started and our little reed hut is anything but water
        tight.

        Before the rain came we had very unpleasant dust storms. I think I told you that
        this is a treeless area and the grass which normally covers the veldt has been cropped
        to the roots by the hungry native cattle and goats. When the wind blows the dust
        collects in tall black columns which sweep across the country in a most spectacular
        fashion. One such dust devil struck our hut one day whilst we were at lunch. George
        swept Kate up in a second and held her face against his chest whilst I rushed to Johnny
        Jo who was asleep in his pram, and stooped over the pram to protect him. The hut
        groaned and creaked and clouds of dust blew in through the windows and walls covering
        our persons, food, and belongings in a black pall. The dogs food bowls and an empty
        petrol tin outside the hut were whirled up and away. It was all over in a moment but you
        should have seen what a family of sweeps we looked. George looked at our blackened
        Johnny and mimicked in Sister Marianne’s primmest tones, “I find that this is not to be
        allowed.”

        The first rain storm caught me unprepared when George was away on safari. It
        was a terrific thunderstorm. The quite violent thunder and lightening were followed by a
        real tropical downpour. As the hut is on a slight slope, the storm water poured through
        the hut like a river, covering the entire floor, and the roof leaked like a lawn sprinkler.
        Johnny Jo was snug enough in the pram with the hood raised, but Kate and I had a
        damp miserable night. Next morning I had deep drains dug around the hut and when
        George returned from safari he managed to borrow an enormous tarpaulin which is now
        lashed down over the roof.

        It did not rain during the next few days George was home but the very next night
        we were in trouble again. I was awakened by screams from Kate and hurriedly turned up
        the lamp to see that we were in the midst of an invasion of siafu ants. Kate’s bed was
        covered in them. Others appeared to be raining down from the thatch. I quickly stripped
        Kate and carried her across to my bed, whilst I rushed to the pram to see whether
        Johnny Jo was all right. He was fast asleep, bless him, and slept on through all the
        commotion, whilst I struggled to pick all the ants out of Kate’s hair, stopping now and
        again to attend to my own discomfort. These ants have a painful bite and seem to
        choose all the most tender spots. Kate fell asleep eventually but I sat up for the rest of
        the night to make sure that the siafu kept clear of the children. Next morning the servants
        dispersed them by laying hot ash.

        In spite of the dampness of the hut both children are blooming. Kate has rosy
        cheeks and Johnny Jo now has a fuzz of fair hair and has lost his ‘old man’ look. He
        reminds me of Ann at his age.

        Eleanor.

        Iringa. 30th November 1938

        Dearest Family,

        Here we are back in the Southern Highlands and installed on the second floor of
        another German Fort. This one has been modernised however and though not so
        romantic as the Mbulu Fort from the outside, it is much more comfortable.We are all well
        and I am really proud of our two safari babies who stood up splendidly to a most trying
        journey North from Mbulu to Arusha and then South down the Great North Road to
        Iringa where we expect to stay for a month.

        At Arusha George reported to the headquarters of the Game Department and
        was instructed to come on down here on Rinderpest Control. There is a great flap on in
        case the rinderpest spread to Northern Rhodesia and possibly onwards to Southern
        Rhodesia and South Africa. Extra veterinary officers have been sent to this area to
        inoculate all the cattle against the disease whilst George and his African game Scouts will
        comb the bush looking for and destroying diseased game. If the rinderpest spreads,
        George says it may be necessary to shoot out all the game in a wide belt along the
        border between the Southern Highlands of Tanganyika and Northern Rhodesia, to
        prevent the disease spreading South. The very idea of all this destruction sickens us
        both.

        George left on a foot safari the day after our arrival and I expect I shall be lucky if I
        see him occasionally at weekends until this job is over. When rinderpest is under control
        George is to be stationed at a place called Nzassa in the Eastern Province about 18
        miles from Dar es Salaam. George’s orderly, who is a tall, cheerful Game Scout called
        Juma, tells me that he has been stationed at Nzassa and it is a frightful place! However I
        refuse to be depressed. I now have the cheering prospect of leave to England in thirty
        months time when we will be able to fetch Ann and George and be a proper family
        again. Both Ann and George look happy in the snapshots which mother-in-law sends
        frequently. Ann is doing very well at school and loves it.

        To get back to our journey from Mbulu. It really was quite an experience. It
        poured with rain most of the way and the road was very slippery and treacherous the
        120 miles between Mbulu and Arusha. This is a little used earth road and the drains are
        so blocked with silt as to be practically non existent. As usual we started our move with
        the V8 loaded to capacity. I held Johnny on my knee and Kate squeezed in between
        George and me. All our goods and chattels were in wooden boxes stowed in the back
        and the two houseboys and the two dogs had to adjust themselves to the space that
        remained. We soon ran into trouble and it took us all day to travel 47 miles. We stuck
        several times in deep mud and had some most nasty skids. I simply clutched Kate in
        one hand and Johnny Jo in the other and put my trust in George who never, under any
        circumstances, loses his head. Poor Johnny only got his meals when circumstances
        permitted. Unfortunately I had put him on a bottle only a few days before we left Mbulu
        and, as I was unable to buy either a primus stove or Thermos flask there we had to
        make a fire and boil water for each meal. Twice George sat out in the drizzle with a rain
        coat rapped over his head to protect a miserable little fire of wet sticks drenched with
        paraffin. Whilst we waited for the water to boil I pacified John by letting him suck a cube
        of Tate and Lyles sugar held between my rather grubby fingers. Not at all according to
        the book.

        That night George, the children and I slept in the car having dumped our boxes
        and the two servants in a deserted native hut. The rain poured down relentlessly all night
        and by morning the road was more of a morass than ever. We swerved and skidded
        alarmingly till eventually one of the wheel chains broke and had to be tied together with
        string which constantly needed replacing. George was so patient though he was wet
        and muddy and tired and both children were very good. Shortly before reaching the Great North Road we came upon Jack Gowan, the Stock Inspector from Mbulu. His car
        was bogged down to its axles in black mud. He refused George’s offer of help saying
        that he had sent his messenger to a nearby village for help.

        I hoped that conditions would be better on the Great North Road but how over
        optimistic I was. For miles the road runs through a belt of ‘black cotton soil’. which was
        churned up into the consistency of chocolate blancmange by the heavy lorry traffic which
        runs between Dodoma and Arusha. Soon the car was skidding more fantastically than
        ever. Once it skidded around in a complete semi circle so George decided that it would
        be safer for us all to walk whilst he negotiated the very bad patches. You should have
        seen me plodding along in the mud and drizzle with the baby in one arm and Kate
        clinging to the other. I was terrified of slipping with Johnny. Each time George reached
        firm ground he would return on foot to carry Kate and in this way we covered many bad
        patches.We were more fortunate than many other travellers. We passed several lorries
        ditched on the side of the road and one car load of German men, all elegantly dressed in
        lounge suits. One was busy with his camera so will have a record of their plight to laugh
        over in the years to come. We spent another night camping on the road and next day
        set out on the last lap of the journey. That also was tiresome but much better than the
        previous day and we made the haven of the Arusha Hotel before dark. What a picture
        we made as we walked through the hall in our mud splattered clothes! Even Johnny was
        well splashed with mud but no harm was done and both he and Kate are blooming.
        We rested for two days at Arusha and then came South to Iringa. Luckily the sun
        came out and though for the first day the road was muddy it was no longer so slippery
        and the second day found us driving through parched country and along badly
        corrugated roads. The further South we came, the warmer the sun which at times blazed
        through the windscreen and made us all uncomfortably hot. I have described the country
        between Arusha and Dodoma before so I shan’t do it again. We reached Iringa without
        mishap and after a good nights rest all felt full of beans.

        Eleanor.

        Mchewe Estate, Mbeya. 7th January 1939.

        Dearest Family,

        You will be surprised to note that we are back on the farm! At least the children
        and I are here. George is away near the Rhodesian border somewhere, still on
        Rinderpest control.

        I had a pleasant time at Iringa, lots of invitations to morning tea and Kate had a
        wonderful time enjoying the novelty of playing with children of her own age. She is not
        shy but nevertheless likes me to be within call if not within sight. It was all very suburban
        but pleasant enough. A few days before Christmas George turned up at Iringa and
        suggested that, as he would be working in the Mbeya area, it might be a good idea for
        the children and me to move to the farm. I agreed enthusiastically, completely forgetting
        that after my previous trouble with the leopard I had vowed to myself that I would never
        again live alone on the farm.

        Alas no sooner had we arrived when Thomas, our farm headman, brought the
        news that there were now two leopards terrorising the neighbourhood, and taking dogs,
        goats and sheep and chickens. Traps and poisoned bait had been tried in vain and he
        was sure that the female was the same leopard which had besieged our home before.
        Other leopards said Thomas, came by stealth but this one advertised her whereabouts
        in the most brazen manner.

        George stayed with us on the farm over Christmas and all was quiet at night so I
        cheered up and took the children for walks along the overgrown farm paths. However on
        New Years Eve that darned leopard advertised her presence again with the most blood
        chilling grunts and snarls. Horrible! Fanny and Paddy barked and growled and woke up
        both children. Kate wept and kept saying, “Send it away mummy. I don’t like it.” Johnny
        Jo howled in sympathy. What a picnic. So now the whole performance of bodyguards
        has started again and ‘till George returns we confine our exercise to the garden.
        Our little house is still cosy and sweet but the coffee plantation looks very
        neglected. I wish to goodness we could sell it.

        Eleanor.

        Nzassa 14th February 1939.

        Dearest Family,

        After three months of moving around with two small children it is heavenly to be
        settled in our own home, even though Nzassa is an isolated spot and has the reputation
        of being unhealthy.

        We travelled by car from Mbeya to Dodoma by now a very familiar stretch of
        country, but from Dodoma to Dar es Salaam by train which made a nice change. We
        spent two nights and a day in the Splendid Hotel in Dar es Salaam, George had some
        official visits to make and I did some shopping and we took the children to the beach.
        The bay is so sheltered that the sea is as calm as a pond and the water warm. It is
        wonderful to see the sea once more and to hear tugs hooting and to watch the Arab
        dhows putting out to sea with their oddly shaped sails billowing. I do love the bush, but
        I love the sea best of all, as you know.

        We made an early start for Nzassa on the 3rd. For about four miles we bowled
        along a good road. This brought us to a place called Temeke where George called on
        the District Officer. His house appears to be the only European type house there. The
        road between Temeke and the turn off to Nzassa is quite good, but the six mile stretch
        from the turn off to Nzassa is a very neglected bush road. There is nothing to be seen
        but the impenetrable bush on both sides with here and there a patch of swampy
        ground where rice is planted in the wet season.

        After about six miles of bumpy road we reached Nzassa which is nothing more
        than a sandy clearing in the bush. Our house however is a fine one. It was originally built
        for the District Officer and there is a small court house which is now George’s office. The
        District Officer died of blackwater fever so Nzassa was abandoned as an administrative
        station being considered too unhealthy for Administrative Officers but suitable as
        Headquarters for a Game Ranger. Later a bachelor Game Ranger was stationed here
        but his health also broke down and he has been invalided to England. So now the
        healthy Rushbys are here and we don’t mean to let the place get us down. So don’t
        worry.

        The house consists of three very large and airy rooms with their doors opening
        on to a wide front verandah which we shall use as a living room. There is also a wide
        back verandah with a store room at one end and a bathroom at the other. Both
        verandahs and the end windows of the house are screened my mosquito gauze wire
        and further protected by a trellis work of heavy expanded metal. Hasmani, the Game
        Scout, who has been acting as caretaker, tells me that the expanded metal is very
        necessary because lions often come out of the bush at night and roam around the
        house. Such a comforting thought!

        On our very first evening we discovered how necessary the mosquito gauze is.
        After sunset the air outside is thick with mosquitos from the swamps. About an acre of
        land has been cleared around the house. This is a sandy waste because there is no
        water laid on here and absolutely nothing grows here except a rather revolting milky
        desert bush called ‘Manyara’, and a few acacia trees. A little way from the house there is
        a patch of citrus trees, grape fruit, I think, but whether they ever bear fruit I don’t know.
        The clearing is bordered on three sides by dense dusty thorn bush which is
        ‘lousy with buffalo’ according to George. The open side is the road which leads down to
        George’s office and the huts for the Game Scouts. Only Hasmani and George’s orderly
        Juma and their wives and families live there, and the other huts provide shelter for the
        Game Scouts from the bush who come to Nzassa to collect their pay and for a short
        rest. I can see that my daily walk will always be the same, down the road to the huts and
        back! However I don’t mind because it is far too hot to take much exercise.

        The climate here is really tropical and worse than on the coast because the thick
        bush cuts us off from any sea breeze. George says it will be cooler when the rains start
        but just now we literally drip all day. Kate wears nothing but a cotton sun suit, and Johnny
        a napkin only, but still their little bodies are always moist. I have shorn off all Kate’s lovely
        shoulder length curls and got George to cut my hair very short too.

        We simply must buy a refrigerator. The butter, and even the cheese we bought
        in Dar. simply melted into pools of oil overnight, and all our meat went bad, so we are
        living out of tins. However once we get organised I shall be quite happy here. I like this
        spacious house and I have good servants. The cook, Hamisi Issa, is a Swahili from Lindi
        whom we engaged in Dar es Salaam. He is a very dignified person, and like most
        devout Mohammedan Cooks, keeps both his person and the kitchen spotless. I
        engaged the house boy here. He is rather a timid little body but is very willing and quite
        capable. He has an excessively plain but cheerful wife whom I have taken on as ayah. I
        do not really need help with the children but feel I must have a woman around just in
        case I go down with malaria when George is away on safari.

        Eleanor.

        Nzassa 28th February 1939.

        Dearest Family,

        George’s birthday and we had a special tea party this afternoon which the
        children much enjoyed. We have our frig now so I am able to make jellies and provide
        them with really cool drinks.

        Our very first visitor left this morning after spending only one night here. He is Mr
        Ionides, the Game Ranger from the Southern Province. He acted as stand in here for a
        short while after George’s predecessor left for England on sick leave, and where he has
        since died. Mr Ionides returned here to hand over the range and office formally to
        George. He seems a strange man and is from all accounts a bit of a hermit. He was at
        one time an Officer in the Regular Army but does not look like a soldier, he wears the
        most extraordinary clothes but nevertheless contrives to look top-drawer. He was
        educated at Rugby and Sandhurst and is, I should say, well read. Ionides told us that he
        hated Nzassa, particularly the house which he thinks sinister and says he always slept
        down in the office.

        The house, or at least one bedroom, seems to have the same effect on Kate.
        She has been very nervous at night ever since we arrived. At first the children occupied
        the bedroom which is now George’s. One night, soon after our arrival, Kate woke up
        screaming to say that ‘something’ had looked at her through the mosquito net. She was
        in such a hysterical state that inspite of the heat and discomfort I was obliged to crawl into
        her little bed with her and remained there for the rest of the night.

        Next night I left a night lamp burning but even so I had to sit by her bed until she
        dropped off to sleep. Again I was awakened by ear-splitting screams and this time
        found Kate standing rigid on her bed. I lifted her out and carried her to a chair meaning to
        comfort her but she screeched louder than ever, “Look Mummy it’s under the bed. It’s
        looking at us.” In vain I pointed out that there was nothing at all there. By this time
        George had joined us and he carried Kate off to his bed in the other room whilst I got into
        Kate’s bed thinking she might have been frightened by a rat which might also disturb
        Johnny.

        Next morning our houseboy remarked that he had heard Kate screaming in the
        night from his room behind the kitchen. I explained what had happened and he must
        have told the old Scout Hasmani who waylaid me that afternoon and informed me quite
        seriously that that particular room was haunted by a ‘sheitani’ (devil) who hates children.
        He told me that whilst he was acting as caretaker before our arrival he one night had his
        wife and small daughter in the room to keep him company. He said that his small
        daughter woke up and screamed exactly as Kate had done! Silly coincidence I
        suppose, but such strange things happen in Africa that I decided to move the children
        into our room and George sleeps in solitary state in the haunted room! Kate now sleeps
        peacefully once she goes to sleep but I have to stay with her until she does.

        I like this house and it does not seem at all sinister to me. As I mentioned before,
        the rooms are high ceilinged and airy, and have cool cement floors. We have made one
        end of the enclosed verandah into the living room and the other end is the playroom for
        the children. The space in between is a sort of no-mans land taken over by the dogs as
        their special territory.

        Eleanor.

        Nzassa 25th March 1939.

        Dearest Family,

        George is on safari down in the Rufigi River area. He is away for about three
        weeks in the month on this job. I do hate to see him go and just manage to tick over until
        he comes back. But what fun and excitement when he does come home.
        Usually he returns after dark by which time the children are in bed and I have
        settled down on the verandah with a book. The first warning is usually given by the
        dogs, Fanny and her son Paddy. They stir, sit up, look at each other and then go and sit
        side by side by the door with their noses practically pressed to the mosquito gauze and
        ears pricked. Soon I can hear the hum of the car, and so can Hasmani, the old Game
        Scout who sleeps on the back verandah with rifle and ammunition by his side when
        George is away. When he hears the car he turns up his lamp and hurries out to rouse
        Juma, the houseboy. Juma pokes up the fire and prepares tea which George always
        drinks whist a hot meal is being prepared. In the meantime I hurriedly comb my hair and
        powder my nose so that when the car stops I am ready to rush out and welcome
        George home. The boy and Hasmani and the garden boy appear to help with the
        luggage and to greet George and the cook, who always accompanies George on
        Safari. The home coming is always a lively time with much shouting of greetings.
        ‘Jambo’, and ‘Habari ya safari’, whilst the dogs, beside themselves with excitement,
        rush around like lunatics.

        As though his return were not happiness enough, George usually collects the
        mail on his way home so there is news of Ann and young George and letters from you
        and bundles of newspapers and magazines. On the day following his return home,
        George has to deal with official mail in the office but if the following day is a weekday we
        all, the house servants as well as ourselves, pile into the boxbody and go to Dar es
        Salaam. To us this means a mornings shopping followed by an afternoon on the beach.
        It is a bit cooler now that the rains are on but still very humid. Kate keeps chubby
        and rosy in spite of the climate but Johnny is too pale though sturdy enough. He is such
        a good baby which is just as well because Kate is a very demanding little girl though
        sunny tempered and sweet. I appreciate her company very much when George is
        away because we are so far off the beaten track that no one ever calls.

        Eleanor.

        Nzassa 28th April 1939.

        Dearest Family,

        You all seem to wonder how I can stand the loneliness and monotony of living at
        Nzassa when George is on safari, but really and truly I do not mind. Hamisi the cook
        always goes on safari with George and then the houseboy Juma takes over the cooking
        and I do the lighter housework. the children are great company during the day, and when
        they are settled for the night I sit on the verandah and read or write letters or I just dream.
        The verandah is entirely enclosed with both wire mosquito gauze and a trellis
        work of heavy expanded metal, so I am safe from all intruders be they human, animal, or
        insect. Outside the air is alive with mosquitos and the cicadas keep up their monotonous
        singing all night long. My only companions on the verandah are the pale ghecco lizards
        on the wall and the two dogs. Fanny the white bull terrier, lies always near my feet
        dozing happily, but her son Paddy, who is half Airedale has a less phlegmatic
        disposition. He sits alert and on guard by the metal trellis work door. Often a lion grunts
        from the surrounding bush and then his hackles rise and he stands up stiffly with his nose
        pressed to the door. Old Hasmani from his bedroll on the back verandah, gives a little
        cough just to show he is awake. Sometimes the lions are very close and then I hear the
        click of a rifle bolt as Hasmani loads his rifle – but this is usually much later at night when
        the lights are out. One morning I saw large pug marks between the wall of my bedroom
        and the garage but I do not fear lions like I did that beastly leopard on the farm.
        A great deal of witchcraft is still practiced in the bush villages in the
        neighbourhood. I must tell you about old Hasmani’s baby in connection with this. Last
        week Hasmani came to me in great distress to say that his baby was ‘Ngongwa sana ‘
        (very ill) and he thought it would die. I hurried down to the Game Scouts quarters to see
        whether I could do anything for the child and found the mother squatting in the sun
        outside her hut with the baby on her lap. The mother was a young woman but not an
        attractive one. She appeared sullen and indifferent compared with old Hasmani who
        was very distressed. The child was very feverish and breathing with difficulty and
        seemed to me to be suffering from bronchitis if not pneumonia. I rubbed his back and
        chest with camphorated oil and dosed him with aspirin and liquid quinine. I repeated the
        treatment every four hours, but next day there was no apparent improvement.
        In the afternoon Hasmani begged me to give him that night off duty and asked for
        a loan of ten shillings. He explained to me that it seemed to him that the white man’s
        medicine had failed to cure his child and now he wished to take the child to the local witch
        doctor. “For ten shillings” said Hasmani, “the Maganga will drive the devil out of my
        child.” “How?” asked I. “With drums”, said Hasmani confidently. I did not know what to
        do. I thought the child was too ill to be exposed to the night air, yet I knew that if I
        refused his request and the child were to die, Hasmani and all the other locals would hold
        me responsible. I very reluctantly granted his request. I was so troubled by the matter
        that I sent for George’s office clerk. Daniel, and asked him to accompany Hasmani to the
        ceremony and to report to me the next morning. It started to rain after dark and all night
        long I lay awake in bed listening to the drums and the light rain. Next morning when I
        went out to the kitchen to order breakfast I found a beaming Hasmani awaiting me.
        “Memsahib”, he said. “My child is well, the fever is now quite gone, the Maganga drove
        out the devil just as I told you.” Believe it or not, when I hurried to his quarters after
        breakfast I found the mother suckling a perfectly healthy child! It may be my imagination
        but I thought the mother looked pretty smug.The clerk Daniel told me that after Hasmani
        had presented gifts of money and food to the ‘Maganga’, the naked baby was placed
        on a goat skin near the drums. Most of the time he just lay there but sometimes the witch
        doctor picked him up and danced with the child in his arms. Daniel seemed reluctant to
        talk about it. Whatever mumbo jumbo was used all this happened a week ago and the
        baby has never looked back.

        Eleanor.

        Nzassa 3rd July 1939.

        Dearest Family,

        Did I tell you that one of George’s Game Scouts was murdered last month in the
        Maneromango area towards the Rufigi border. He was on routine patrol, with a porter
        carrying his bedding and food, when they suddenly came across a group of African
        hunters who were busy cutting up a giraffe which they had just killed. These hunters were
        all armed with muzzle loaders, spears and pangas, but as it is illegal to kill giraffe without
        a permit, the Scout went up to the group to take their names. Some argument ensued
        and the Scout was stabbed.

        The District Officer went to the area to investigate and decided to call in the Police
        from Dar es Salaam. A party of police went out to search for the murderers but after
        some days returned without making any arrests. George was on an elephant control
        safari in the Bagamoyo District and on his return through Dar es Salaam he heard of the
        murder. George was furious and distressed to hear the news and called in here for an
        hour on his way to Maneromango to search for the murderers himself.

        After a great deal of strenuous investigation he arrested three poachers, put them
        in jail for the night at Maneromango and then brought them to Dar es Salaam where they
        are all now behind bars. George will now have to prosecute in the Magistrate’s Court
        and try and ‘make a case’ so that the prisoners may be committed to the High Court to
        be tried for murder. George is convinced of their guilt and justifiably proud to have
        succeeded where the police failed.

        George had to borrow handcuffs for the prisoners from the Chief at
        Maneromango and these he brought back to Nzassa after delivering the prisoners to
        Dar es Salaam so that he may return them to the Chief when he revisits the area next
        week.

        I had not seen handcuffs before and picked up a pair to examine them. I said to
        George, engrossed in ‘The Times’, “I bet if you were arrested they’d never get
        handcuffs on your wrist. Not these anyway, they look too small.” “Standard pattern,”
        said George still concentrating on the newspaper, but extending an enormous relaxed
        left wrist. So, my dears, I put a bracelet round his wrist and as there was a wide gap I
        gave a hard squeeze with both hands. There was a sharp click as the handcuff engaged
        in the first notch. George dropped the paper and said, “Now you’ve done it, my love,
        one set of keys are in the Dar es Salaam Police Station, and the others with the Chief at
        Maneromango.” You can imagine how utterly silly I felt but George was an angel about it
        and said as he would have to go to Dar es Salaam we might as well all go.

        So we all piled into the car, George, the children and I in the front, and the cook
        and houseboy, immaculate in snowy khanzus and embroidered white caps, a Game
        Scout and the ayah in the back. George never once complain of the discomfort of the
        handcuff but I was uncomfortably aware that it was much too tight because his arm
        above the cuff looked red and swollen and the hand unnaturally pale. As the road is so
        bad George had to use both hands on the wheel and all the time the dangling handcuff
        clanked against the dashboard in an accusing way.

        We drove straight to the Police Station and I could hear the roars of laughter as
        George explained his predicament. Later I had to put up with a good deal of chaffing
        and congratulations upon putting the handcuffs on George.

        Eleanor.

        Nzassa 5th August 1939

        Dearest Family,

        George made a point of being here for Kate’s fourth birthday last week. Just
        because our children have no playmates George and I always do all we can to make
        birthdays very special occasions. We went to Dar es Salaam the day before the
        birthday and bought Kate a very sturdy tricycle with which she is absolutely delighted.
        You will be glad to know that your parcels arrived just in time and Kate loved all your
        gifts especially the little shop from Dad with all the miniature tins and packets of
        groceries. The tea set was also a great success and is much in use.

        We had a lively party which ended with George and me singing ‘Happy
        Birthday to you’, and ended with a wild game with balloons. Kate wore her frilly white net
        party frock and looked so pretty that it seemed a shame that there was no one but us to
        see her. Anyway it was a good party. I wish so much that you could see the children.
        Kate keeps rosy and has not yet had malaria. Johnny Jo is sturdy but pale. He
        runs a temperature now and again but I am not sure whether this is due to teething or
        malaria. Both children of course take quinine every day as George and I do. George
        quite frequently has malaria in spite of prophylactic quinine but this is not surprising as he
        got the germ thoroughly established in his system in his early elephant hunting days. I
        get it too occasionally but have not been really ill since that first time a month after my
        arrival in the country.

        Johnny is such a good baby. His chief claim to beauty is his head of soft golden
        curls but these are due to come off on his first birthday as George considers them too
        girlish. George left on safari the day after the party and the very next morning our wood
        boy had a most unfortunate accident. He was chopping a rather tough log when a chip
        flew up and split his upper lip clean through from mouth to nostril exposing teeth and
        gums. A truly horrible sight and very bloody. I cleaned up the wound as best I could
        and sent him off to the hospital at Dar es Salaam on the office bicycle. He wobbled
        away wretchedly down the road with a white cloth tied over his mouth to keep off the
        dust. He returned next day with his lip stitched and very swollen and bearing a
        resemblance to my lip that time I used the hair remover.

        Eleanor.

        Splendid Hotel. Dar es Salaam 7th September 1939

        Dearest Family,

        So now another war has started and it has disrupted even our lives. We have left
        Nzassa for good. George is now a Lieutenant in the King’s African Rifles and the children
        and I are to go to a place called Morogoro to await further developments.
        I was glad to read in today’s paper that South Africa has declared war on
        Germany. I would have felt pretty small otherwise in this hotel which is crammed full of
        men who have been called up for service in the Army. George seems exhilarated by
        the prospect of active service. He is bursting out of his uniform ( at the shoulders only!)
        and all too ready for the fray.

        The war came as a complete surprise to me stuck out in the bush as I was without
        wireless or mail. George had been away for a fortnight so you can imagine how
        surprised I was when a messenger arrived on a bicycle with a note from George. The
        note informed me that war had been declared and that George, as a Reserve Officer in
        the KAR had been called up. I was to start packing immediately and be ready by noon
        next day when George would arrive with a lorry for our goods and chattels. I started to
        pack immediately with the help of the houseboy and by the time George arrived with
        the lorry only the frig remained to be packed and this was soon done.

        Throughout the morning Game Scouts had been arriving from outlying parts of
        the District. I don’t think they had the least idea where they were supposed to go or
        whom they were to fight but were ready to fight anybody, anywhere, with George.
        They all looked very smart in well pressed uniforms hung about with water bottles and
        ammunition pouches. The large buffalo badge on their round pill box hats absolutely
        glittered with polish. All of course carried rifles and when George arrived they all lined up
        and they looked most impressive. I took some snaps but unfortunately it was drizzling
        and they may not come out well.

        We left Nzassa without a backward glance. We were pretty fed up with it by
        then. The children and I are spending a few days here with George but our luggage, the
        dogs, and the houseboys have already left by train for Morogoro where a small house
        has been found for the children and me.

        George tells me that all the German males in this Territory were interned without a
        hitch. The whole affair must have been very well organised. In every town and
        settlement special constables were sworn in to do the job. It must have been a rather
        unpleasant one but seems to have gone without incident. There is a big transit camp
        here at Dar for the German men. Later they are to be sent out of the country, possibly to
        Rhodesia.

        The Indian tailors in the town are all terribly busy making Army uniforms, shorts
        and tunics in khaki drill. George swears that they have muddled their orders and he has
        been given the wrong things. Certainly the tunic is far too tight. His hat, a khaki slouch hat
        like you saw the Australians wearing in the last war, is also too small though it is the
        largest they have in stock. We had a laugh over his other equipment which includes a
        small canvas haversack and a whistle on a black cord. George says he feels like he is
        back in his Boy Scouting boyhood.

        George has just come in to say the we will be leaving for Morogoro tomorrow
        afternoon.

        Eleanor.

        Morogoro 14th September 1939

        Dearest Family,

        Morogoro is a complete change from Nzassa. This is a large and sprawling
        township. The native town and all the shops are down on the flat land by the railway but
        all the European houses are away up the slope of the high Uluguru Mountains.
        Morogoro was a flourishing town in the German days and all the streets are lined with
        trees for coolness as is the case in other German towns. These trees are the flamboyant
        acacia which has an umbrella top and throws a wide but light shade.

        Most of the houses have large gardens so they cover a considerable area and it
        is quite a safari for me to visit friends on foot as our house is on the edge of this area and
        the furthest away from the town. Here ones house is in accordance with ones seniority in
        Government service. Ours is a simple affair, just three lofty square rooms opening on to
        a wide enclosed verandah. Mosquitoes are bad here so all doors and windows are
        screened and we will have to carry on with our daily doses of quinine.

        George came up to Morogoro with us on the train. This was fortunate because I
        went down with a sharp attack of malaria at the hotel on the afternoon of our departure
        from Dar es Salaam. George’s drastic cure of vast doses of quinine, a pillow over my
        head, and the bed heaped with blankets soon brought down the temperature so I was
        fit enough to board the train but felt pretty poorly on the trip. However next day I felt
        much better which was a good thing as George had to return to Dar es Salaam after two
        days. His train left late at night so I did not see him off but said good-bye at home
        feeling dreadful but trying to keep the traditional stiff upper lip of the wife seeing her
        husband off to the wars. He hopes to go off to Abyssinia but wrote from Dar es Salaam
        to say that he is being sent down to Rhodesia by road via Mbeya to escort the first
        detachment of Rhodesian white troops.

        First he will have to select suitable camping sites for night stops and arrange for
        supplies of food. I am very pleased as it means he will be safe for a while anyway. We
        are both worried about Ann and George in England and wonder if it would be safer to
        have them sent out.

        Eleanor.

        Morogoro 4th November 1939

        Dearest Family,

        My big news is that George has been released from the Army. He is very
        indignant and disappointed because he hoped to go to Abyssinia but I am terribly,
        terribly glad. The Chief Secretary wrote a very nice letter to George pointing out that he
        would be doing a greater service to his country by his work of elephant control, giving
        crop protection during the war years when foodstuffs are such a vital necessity, than by
        doing a soldiers job. The Government plan to start a huge rice scheme in the Rufiji area,
        and want George to control the elephant and hippo there. First of all though. he must go
        to the Southern Highlands Province where there is another outbreak of Rinderpest, to
        shoot out diseased game especially buffalo, which might spread the disease.

        So off we go again on our travels but this time we are leaving the two dogs
        behind in the care of Daniel, the Game Clerk. Fanny is very pregnant and I hate leaving
        her behind but the clerk has promised to look after her well. We are taking Hamisi, our
        dignified Swahili cook and the houseboy Juma and his wife whom we brought with us
        from Nzassa. The boy is not very good but his wife makes a cheerful and placid ayah
        and adores Johnny.

        Eleanor.

        Iringa 8th December 1939

        Dearest Family,

        The children and I are staying in a small German house leased from the
        Custodian of Enemy Property. I can’t help feeling sorry for the owners who must be in
        concentration camps somewhere.George is away in the bush dealing with the
        Rinderpest emergency and the cook has gone with him. Now I have sent the houseboy
        and the ayah away too. Two days ago my houseboy came and told me that he felt
        very ill and asked me to write a ‘chit’ to the Indian Doctor. In the note I asked the Doctor
        to let me know the nature of his complaint and to my horror I got a note from him to say
        that the houseboy had a bad case of Venereal Disease. Was I horrified! I took it for
        granted that his wife must be infected too and told them both that they would have to
        return to their home in Nzassa. The boy shouted and the ayah wept but I paid them in
        lieu of notice and gave them money for the journey home. So there I was left servant
        less with firewood to chop, a smokey wood burning stove to control, and of course, the
        two children.

        To add to my troubles Johnny had a temperature so I sent for the European
        Doctor. He diagnosed malaria and was astonished at the size of Johnny’s spleen. He
        said that he must have had suppressed malaria over a long period and the poor child
        must now be fed maximum doses of quinine for a long time. The Doctor is a fatherly
        soul, he has been recalled from retirement to do this job as so many of the young
        doctors have been called up for service with the army.

        I told him about my houseboy’s complaint and the way I had sent him off
        immediately, and he was very amused at my haste, saying that it is most unlikely that
        they would have passed the disease onto their employers. Anyway I hated the idea. I
        mean to engage a houseboy locally, but will do without an ayah until we return to
        Morogoro in February.

        Something happened today to cheer me up. A telegram came from Daniel which
        read, “FLANNEL HAS FIVE CUBS.”

        Eleanor.

        Morogoro 10th March 1940

        Dearest Family,

        We are having very heavy rain and the countryside is a most beautiful green. In
        spite of the weather George is away on safari though it must be very wet and
        unpleasant. He does work so hard at his elephant hunting job and has got very thin. I
        suppose this is partly due to those stomach pains he gets and the doctors don’t seem
        to diagnose the trouble.

        Living in Morogoro is much like living in a country town in South Africa, particularly
        as there are several South African women here. I go out quite often to morning teas. We
        all take our war effort knitting, and natter, and are completely suburban.
        I sometimes go and see an elderly couple who have been interred here. They
        are cold shouldered by almost everyone else but I cannot help feeling sorry for them.
        Usually I go by invitation because I know Mrs Ruppel prefers to be prepared and
        always has sandwiches and cake. They both speak English but not fluently and
        conversation is confined to talking about my children and theirs. Their two sons were
        students in Germany when war broke out but are now of course in the German Army.
        Such nice looking chaps from their photographs but I suppose thorough Nazis. As our
        conversation is limited I usually ask to hear a gramophone record or two. They have a
        large collection.

        Janet, the ayah whom I engaged at Mbeya, is proving a great treasure. She is a
        trained hospital ayah and is most dependable and capable. She is, perhaps, a little strict
        but the great thing is that I can trust her with the children out of my sight.
        Last week I went out at night for the first time without George. The occasion was
        a farewell sundowner given by the Commissioner of Prisoners and his wife. I was driven
        home by the District Officer and he stopped his car by the back door in a large puddle.
        Ayah came to the back door, storm lamp in hand, to greet me. My escort prepared to
        drive off but the car stuck. I thought a push from me might help, so without informing the
        driver, I pushed as hard as I could on the back of the car. Unfortunately the driver
        decided on other tactics. He put the engine in reverse and I was knocked flat on my back
        in the puddle. The car drove forward and away without the driver having the least idea of
        what happened. The ayah was in quite a state, lifting me up and scolding me for my
        stupidity as though I were Kate. I was a bit shaken but non the worse and will know
        better next time.

        Eleanor.

        Morogoro 14th July 1940

        Dearest Family,

        How good it was of Dad to send that cable to Mother offering to have Ann and
        George to live with you if they are accepted for inclusion in the list of children to be
        evacuated to South Africa. It would be wonderful to know that they are safely out of the
        war zone and so much nearer to us but I do dread the thought of the long sea voyage
        particularly since we heard the news of the sinking of that liner carrying child evacuees to
        Canada. I worry about them so much particularly as George is so often away on safari.
        He is so comforting and calm and I feel brave and confident when he is home.
        We have had no news from England for five weeks but, when she last wrote,
        mother said the children were very well and that she was sure they would be safe in the
        country with her.

        Kate and John are growing fast. Kate is such a pretty little girl, rosy in spite of the
        rather trying climate. I have allowed her hair to grow again and it hangs on her shoulders
        in shiny waves. John is a more slightly built little boy than young George was, and quite
        different in looks. He has Dad’s high forehead and cleft chin, widely spaced brown eyes
        that are not so dark as mine and hair that is still fair and curly though ayah likes to smooth it
        down with water every time she dresses him. He is a shy child, and although he plays
        happily with Kate, he does not care to play with other children who go in the late
        afternoons to a lawn by the old German ‘boma’.

        Kate has playmates of her own age but still rather clings to me. Whilst she loves
        to have friends here to play with her, she will not go to play at their houses unless I go
        too and stay. She always insists on accompanying me when I go out to morning tea
        and always calls JanetJohn’s ayah”. One morning I went to a knitting session at a
        neighbours house. We are all knitting madly for the troops. As there were several other
        women in the lounge and no other children, I installed Kate in the dining room with a
        colouring book and crayons. My hostess’ black dog was chained to the dining room
        table leg, but as he and Kate are on friendly terms I was not bothered by this.
        Some time afterwards, during a lull in conversation, I heard a strange drumming
        noise coming from the dining room. I went quickly to investigate and, to my horror, found
        Kate lying on her back with the dog chain looped around her neck. The frightened dog
        was straining away from her as far as he could get and the chain was pulled so tightly
        around her throat that she could not scream. The drumming noise came from her heels
        kicking in a panic on the carpet.

        Even now I do not know how Kate got herself into this predicament. Luckily no
        great harm was done but I think I shall do my knitting at home in future.

        Eleanor.

        Morogoro 16th November 1940

        Dearest Family,

        I much prefer our little house on the hillside to the larger one we had down below.
        The only disadvantage is that the garden is on three levels and both children have had
        some tumbles down the steps on the tricycle. John is an extremely stoical child. He
        never cries when he hurts himself.

        I think I have mentioned ‘Morningside’ before. It is a kind of Resthouse high up in
        the Uluguru Mountains above Morogoro. Jess Howe-Browne, who runs the large
        house as a Guest House, is a wonderful woman. Besides running the boarding house
        she also grows vegetables, flowers and fruit for sale in Morogoro and Dar es Salaam.
        Her guests are usually women and children from Dar es Salaam who come in the hot
        season to escape the humidity on the coast. Often the mothers leave their children for
        long periods in Jess Howe-Browne’s care. There is a road of sorts up the mountain side
        to Morningside, but this is so bad that cars do not attempt it and guests are carried up
        the mountain in wicker chairs lashed to poles. Four men carry an adult, and two a child,
        and there are of course always spare bearers and they work in shifts.

        Last week the children and I went to Morningside for the day as guests. John
        rode on my lap in one chair and Kate in a small chair on her own. This did not please
        Kate at all. The poles are carried on the bearers shoulders and one is perched quite high.
        The motion is a peculiar rocking one. The bearers chant as they go and do not seem
        worried by shortness of breath! They are all hillmen of course and are, I suppose, used
        to trotting up and down to the town.

        Morningside is well worth visiting and we spent a delightful day there. The fresh
        cool air is a great change from the heavy air of the valley. A river rushes down the
        mountain in a series of cascades, and the gardens are shady and beautiful. Behind the
        property is a thick indigenous forest which stretches from Morningside to the top of the
        mountain. The house is an old German one, rather in need of repair, but Jess has made
        it comfortable and attractive, with some of her old family treasures including a fine old
        Grandfather clock. We had a wonderful lunch which included large fresh strawberries and
        cream. We made the return journey again in the basket chairs and got home before dark.
        George returned home at the weekend with a baby elephant whom we have
        called Winnie. She was rescued from a mud hole by some African villagers and, as her
        mother had abandoned her, they took her home and George was informed. He went in
        the truck to fetch her having first made arrangements to have her housed in a shed on the
        Agriculture Department Experimental Farm here. He has written to the Game Dept
        Headquarters to inform the Game Warden and I do not know what her future will be, but
        in the meantime she is our pet. George is afraid she will not survive because she has
        had a very trying time. She stands about waist high and is a delightful creature and quite
        docile. Asian and African children as well as Europeans gather to watch her and George
        encourages them to bring fruit for her – especially pawpaws which she loves.
        Whilst we were there yesterday one of the local ladies came, very smartly
        dressed in a linen frock, silk stockings, and high heeled shoes. She watched fascinated
        whilst Winnie neatly split a pawpaw and removed the seeds with her trunk, before
        scooping out the pulp and putting it in her mouth. It was a particularly nice ripe pawpaw
        and Winnie enjoyed it so much that she stretched out her trunk for more. The lady took
        fright and started to run with Winnie after her, sticky trunk outstretched. Quite an
        entertaining sight. George managed to stop Winnie but not before she had left a gooey
        smear down the back of the immaculate frock.

        Eleanor.

         

        #6265
        TracyTracy
        Participant

          From Tanganyika with Love

          continued  ~ part 6

          With thanks to Mike Rushby.

          Mchewe 6th June 1937

          Dearest Family,

          Home again! We had an uneventful journey. Kate was as good as gold all the
          way. We stopped for an hour at Bulawayo where we had to change trains but
          everything was simplified for me by a very pleasant man whose wife shared my
          compartment. Not only did he see me through customs but he installed us in our new
          train and his wife turned up to see us off with magazines for me and fruit and sweets for
          Kate. Very, very kind, don’t you think?

          Kate and I shared the compartment with a very pretty and gentle girl called
          Clarice Simpson. She was very worried and upset because she was going home to
          Broken Hill in response to a telegram informing her that her young husband was
          dangerously ill from Blackwater Fever. She was very helpful with Kate whose
          cheerfulness helped Clarice, I think, though I, quite unintentionally was the biggest help
          at the end of our journey. Remember the partial dentures I had had made just before
          leaving Cape Town? I know I shall never get used to the ghastly things, I’ve had them
          two weeks now and they still wobble. Well this day I took them out and wrapped them
          in a handkerchief, but when we were packing up to leave the train I could find the
          handkerchief but no teeth! We searched high and low until the train had slowed down to
          enter Broken Hill station. Then Clarice, lying flat on the floor, spied the teeth in the dark
          corner under the bottom bunk. With much stretching she managed to retrieve the
          dentures covered in grime and fluff. My look of horror, when I saw them, made young
          Clarice laugh. She was met at the station by a very grave elderly couple. I do wonder
          how things turned out for her.

          I stayed overnight with Kate at the Great Northern Hotel, and we set off for
          Mbeya by plane early in the morning. One of our fellow passengers was a young
          mother with a three week old baby. How ideas have changed since Ann was born. This
          time we had a smooth passage and I was the only passenger to get airsick. Although
          there were other women passengers it was a man once again, who came up and
          offered to help. Kate went off with him amiably and he entertained her until we touched
          down at Mbeya.

          George was there to meet us with a wonderful surprise, a little red two seater
          Ford car. She is a bit battered and looks a bit odd because the boot has been
          converted into a large wooden box for carrying raw salt, but she goes like the wind.
          Where did George raise the cash to buy a car? Whilst we were away he found a small
          cave full of bat guano near a large cave which is worked by a man called Bob Sargent.
          As Sargent did not want any competition he bought the contents of the cave from
          George giving him the small car as part payment.

          It was lovely to return to our little home and find everything fresh and tidy and the
          garden full of colour. But it was heartbreaking to go into the bedroom and see George’s
          precious forgotten boots still standing by his empty bed.

          With much love,
          Eleanor.

          Mchewe 25th June 1937

          Dearest Family,

          Last Friday George took Kate and me in the little red Ford to visit Mr Sargent’s
          camp on the Songwe River which cuts the Mbeya-Mbosi road. Mr Sargent bought
          Hicky-Wood’s guano deposit and also our small cave and is making a good living out of
          selling the bat guano to the coffee farmers in this province. George went to try to interest
          him in a guano deposit near Kilwa in the Southern Province. Mr Sargent agreed to pay
          25 pounds to cover the cost of the car trip and pegging costs. George will make the trip
          to peg the claim and take samples for analysis. If the quality is sufficiently high, George
          and Mr Sargent will go into partnership. George will work the claim and ship out the
          guano from Kilwa which is on the coast of the Southern Province of Tanganyika. So now
          we are busy building castles in the air once more.

          On Saturday we went to Mbeya where George had to attend a meeting of the
          Trout Association. In the afternoon he played in a cricket match so Kate and I spent the
          whole day with the wife of the new Superintendent of Police. They have a very nice
          new house with lawns and a sunken rose garden. Kate had a lovely romp with Kit, her
          three year old son.

          Mrs Wolten also has two daughters by a previous marriage. The elder girl said to
          me, “Oh Mrs Rushby your husband is exactly like the strong silent type of man I
          expected to see in Africa but he is the only one I have seen. I think he looks exactly like
          those men in the ‘Barney’s Tobacco’ advertisements.”

          I went home with a huge pile of magazines to keep me entertained whilst
          George is away on the Kilwa trip.

          Lots of love,
          Eleanor.

          Mchewe 9th July 1937

          Dearest Family,

          George returned on Monday from his Kilwa safari. He had an entertaining
          tale to tell.

          Before he approached Mr Sargent about going shares in the Kilwa guano
          deposit he first approached a man on the Lupa who had done very well out of a small
          gold reef. This man, however said he was not interested so you can imagine how
          indignant George was when he started on his long trip, to find himself being trailed by
          this very man and a co-driver in a powerful Ford V8 truck. George stopped his car and
          had some heated things to say – awful threats I imagine as to what would happen to
          anyone who staked his claim. Then he climbed back into our ancient little two seater and
          went off like a bullet driving all day and most of the night. As the others took turns in
          driving you can imagine what a feat it was for George to arrive in Kilwa ahead of them.
          When they drove into Kilwa he met them with a bright smile and a bit of bluff –
          quite justifiable under the circumstances I think. He said, you chaps can have a rest now,
          you’re too late.” He then whipped off and pegged the claim. he brought some samples
          of guano back but until it has been analysed he will not know whether the guano will be
          an economic proposition or not. George is not very hopeful. He says there is a good
          deal of sand mixed with the guano and that much of it was damp.

          The trip was pretty eventful for Kianda, our houseboy. The little two seater car
          had been used by its previous owner for carting bags of course salt from his salt pans.
          For this purpose the dicky seat behind the cab had been removed, and a kind of box
          built into the boot of the car. George’s camp kit and provisions were packed into this
          open box and Kianda perched on top to keep an eye on the belongings. George
          travelled so fast on the rough road that at some point during the night Kianda was
          bumped off in the middle of the Game Reserve. George did not notice that he was
          missing until the next morning. He concluded, quite rightly as it happened, that Kianda
          would be picked up by the rival truck so he continued his journey and Kianda rejoined
          him at Kilwa.

          Believe it or not, the same thing happened on the way back but fortunately this
          time George noticed his absence. He stopped the car and had just started back on his
          tracks when Kianda came running down the road still clutching the unlighted storm lamp
          which he was holding in his hand when he fell. The glass was not even cracked.
          We are finding it difficult just now to buy native chickens and eggs. There has
          been an epidemic amongst the poultry and one hesitates to eat the survivors. I have a
          brine tub in which I preserve our surplus meat but I need the chickens for soup.
          I hope George will be home for some months. He has arranged to take a Mr
          Blackburn, a wealthy fruit farmer from Elgin, Cape, on a hunting safari during September
          and October and that should bring in some much needed cash. Lillian Eustace has
          invited Kate and me to spend the whole of October with her in Tukuyu.
          I am so glad that you so much enjoy having Ann and George with you. We miss
          them dreadfully. Kate is a pretty little girl and such a little madam. You should hear the
          imperious way in which she calls the kitchenboy for her meals. “Boy Brekkis, Boy Lunch,
          and Boy Eggy!” are her three calls for the day. She knows no Ki-Swahili.

          Eleanor

          Mchewe 8th October 1937

          Dearest Family,

          I am rapidly becoming as superstitious as our African boys. They say the wild
          animals always know when George is away from home and come down to have their
          revenge on me because he has killed so many.

          I am being besieged at night by a most beastly leopard with a half grown cub. I
          have grown used to hearing leopards grunt as they hunt in the hills at night but never
          before have I had one roaming around literally under the windows. It has been so hot at
          night lately that I have been sleeping with my bedroom door open onto the verandah. I
          felt quite safe because the natives hereabouts are law-abiding and in any case I always
          have a boy armed with a club sleeping in the kitchen just ten yards away. As an added
          precaution I also have a loaded .45 calibre revolver on my bedside table, and Fanny
          our bullterrier, sleeps on the mat by my bed. I am also looking after Barney, a fine
          Airedale dog belonging to the Costers. He slept on a mat by the open bedroom door
          near a dimly burning storm lamp.

          As usual I went to sleep with an easy mind on Monday night, but was awakened
          in the early hours of Tuesday by the sound of a scuffle on the front verandah. The noise
          was followed by a scream of pain from Barney. I jumped out of bed and, grabbing the
          lamp with my left hand and the revolver in my right, I rushed outside just in time to see
          two animal figures roll over the edge of the verandah into the garden below. There they
          engaged in a terrific tug of war. Fortunately I was too concerned for Barney to be
          nervous. I quickly fired two shots from the revolver, which incidentally makes a noise like
          a cannon, and I must have startled the leopard for both animals, still locked together,
          disappeared over the edge of the terrace. I fired two more shots and in a few moments
          heard the leopard making a hurried exit through the dry leaves which lie thick under the
          wild fig tree just beyond the terrace. A few seconds later Barney appeared on the low
          terrace wall. I called his name but he made no move to come but stood with hanging
          head. In desperation I rushed out, felt blood on my hands when I touched him, so I
          picked him up bodily and carried him into the house. As I regained the verandah the boy
          appeared, club in hand, having been roused by the shots. He quickly grasped what had
          happened when he saw my blood saturated nightie. He fetched a bowl of water and a
          clean towel whilst I examined Barney’s wounds. These were severe, the worst being a
          gaping wound in his throat. I washed the gashes with a strong solution of pot permang
          and I am glad to say they are healing remarkably well though they are bound to leave
          scars. Fanny, very prudently, had taken no part in the fighting except for frenzied barking
          which she kept up all night. The shots had of course wakened Kate but she seemed
          more interested than alarmed and kept saying “Fanny bark bark, Mummy bang bang.
          Poor Barney lots of blood.”

          In the morning we inspected the tracks in the garden. There was a shallow furrow
          on the terrace where Barney and the leopard had dragged each other to and fro and
          claw marks on the trunk of the wild fig tree into which the leopard climbed after I fired the
          shots. The affair was of course a drama after the Africans’ hearts and several of our
          shamba boys called to see me next day to make sympathetic noises and discuss the
          affair.

          I went to bed early that night hoping that the leopard had been scared off for
          good but I must confess I shut all windows and doors. Alas for my hopes of a restful
          night. I had hardly turned down the lamp when the leopard started its terrifying grunting
          just under the bedroom windows. If only she would sniff around quietly I should not
          mind, but the noise is ghastly, something like the first sickening notes of a braying
          donkey, amplified here by the hills and the gorge which is only a stones throw from the
          bedroom. Barney was too sick to bark but Fanny barked loud enough for two and the more
          frantic she became the hungrier the leopard sounded. Kate of course woke up and this
          time she was frightened though I assured her that the noise was just a donkey having
          fun. Neither of us slept until dawn when the leopard returned to the hills. When we
          examined the tracks next morning we found that the leopard had been accompanied by
          a fair sized cub and that together they had prowled around the house, kitchen, and out
          houses, visiting especially the places to which the dogs had been during the day.
          As I feel I cannot bear many more of these nights, I am sending a note to the
          District Commissioner, Mbeya by the messenger who takes this letter to the post,
          asking him to send a game scout or an armed policeman to deal with the leopard.
          So don’t worry, for by the time this reaches you I feel sure this particular trouble
          will be over.

          Eleanor.

          Mchewe 17th October 1937

          Dearest Family,

          More about the leopard I fear! My messenger returned from Mbeya to say that
          the District Officer was on safari so he had given the message to the Assistant District
          Officer who also apparently left on safari later without bothering to reply to my note, so
          there was nothing for me to do but to send for the village Nimrod and his muzzle loader
          and offer him a reward if he could frighten away or kill the leopard.

          The hunter, Laza, suggested that he should sleep at the house so I went to bed
          early leaving Laza and his two pals to make themselves comfortable on the living room
          floor by the fire. Laza was armed with a formidable looking muzzle loader, crammed I
          imagine with nuts and bolts and old rusty nails. One of his pals had a spear and the other
          a panga. This fellow was also in charge of the Petromax pressure lamp whose light was
          hidden under a packing case. I left the campaign entirely to Laza’s direction.
          As usual the leopard came at midnight stealing down from the direction of the
          kitchen and announcing its presence and position with its usual ghastly grunts. Suddenly
          pandemonium broke loose on the back verandah. I heard the roar of the muzzle loader
          followed by a vigourous tattoo beaten on an empty paraffin tin and I rushed out hoping
          to find the dead leopard. however nothing of the kind had happened except that the
          noise must have scared the beast because she did not return again that night. Next
          morning Laza solemnly informed me that, though he had shot many leopards in his day,
          this was no ordinary leopard but a “sheitani” (devil) and that as his gun was no good
          against witchcraft he thought he might as well retire from the hunt. Scared I bet, and I
          don’t blame him either.

          You can imagine my relief when a car rolled up that afternoon bringing Messers
          Stewart and Griffiths, two farmers who live about 15 miles away, between here and
          Mbeya. They had a note from the Assistant District Officer asking them to help me and
          they had come to set up a trap gun in the garden. That night the leopard sniffed all
          around the gun and I had the added strain of waiting for the bang and wondering what I
          should do if the beast were only wounded. I conjured up horrible visions of the two little
          totos trotting up the garden path with the early morning milk and being horribly mauled,
          but I needn’t have worried because the leopard was far too wily to be caught that way.
          Two more ghastly nights passed and then I had another visitor, a Dr Jackson of
          the Tsetse Department on safari in the District. He listened sympathetically to my story
          and left his shotgun and some SSG cartridges with me and instructed me to wait until the
          leopard was pretty close and blow its b—– head off. It was good of him to leave his
          gun. George always says there are three things a man should never lend, ‘His wife, his
          gun and his dog.’ (I think in that order!)I felt quite cheered by Dr Jackson’s visit and sent
          once again for Laza last night and arranged a real show down. In the afternoon I draped
          heavy blankets over the living room windows to shut out the light of the pressure lamp
          and the four of us, Laza and his two stooges and I waited up for the leopard. When we
          guessed by her grunts that she was somewhere between the kitchen and the back door
          we all rushed out, first the boy with the panga and the lamp, next Laza with his muzzle
          loader, then me with the shotgun followed closely by the boy with the spear. What a
          farce! The lamp was our undoing. We were blinded by the light and did not even
          glimpse the leopard which made off with a derisive grunt. Laza said smugly that he knew
          it was hopeless to try and now I feel tired and discouraged too.

          This morning I sent a runner to Mbeya to order the hotel taxi for tomorrow and I
          shall go to friends in Mbeya for a day or two and then on to Tukuyu where I shall stay
          with the Eustaces until George returns from Safari.

          Eleanor.

          Mchewe 18th November 1937

          My darling Ann,

          Here we are back in our own home and how lovely it is to have Daddy back from
          safari. Thank you very much for your letter. I hope by now you have got mine telling you
          how very much I liked the beautiful tray cloth you made for my birthday. I bet there are
          not many little girls of five who can embroider as well as you do, darling. The boy,
          Matafari, washes and irons it so carefully and it looks lovely on the tea tray.

          Daddy and I had some fun last night. I was in bed and Daddy was undressing
          when we heard a funny scratching noise on the roof. I thought it was the leopard. Daddy
          quickly loaded his shotgun and ran outside. He had only his shirt on and he looked so
          funny. I grabbed the loaded revolver from the cupboard and ran after Dad in my nightie
          but after all the rush it was only your cat, Winnie, though I don’t know how she managed
          to make such a noise. We felt so silly, we laughed and laughed.

          Kate talks a lot now but in such a funny way you would laugh to her her. She
          hears the houseboys call me Memsahib so sometimes instead of calling me Mummy
          she calls me “Oompaab”. She calls the bedroom a ‘bippon’ and her little behind she
          calls her ‘sittendump’. She loves to watch Mandawi’s cattle go home along the path
          behind the kitchen. Joseph your donkey, always leads the cows. He has a lazy life now.
          I am glad you had such fun on Guy Fawkes Day. You will be sad to leave
          Plumstead but I am sure you will like going to England on the big ship with granny Kate.
          I expect you will start school when you get to England and I am sure you will find that
          fun.

          God bless my dear little girl. Lots of love from Daddy and Kate,
          and Mummy

          Mchewe 18th November 1937

          Hello George Darling,

          Thank you for your lovely drawing of Daddy shooting an elephant. Daddy says
          that the only thing is that you have drawn him a bit too handsome.

          I went onto the verandah a few minutes ago to pick a banana for Kate from the
          bunch hanging there and a big hornet flew out and stung my elbow! There are lots of
          them around now and those stinging flies too. Kate wears thick corduroy dungarees so
          that she will not get her fat little legs bitten. She is two years old now and is a real little
          pickle. She loves running out in the rain so I have ordered a pair of red Wellingtons and a
          tiny umbrella from a Nairobi shop for her Christmas present.

          Fanny’s puppies have their eyes open now and have very sharp little teeth.
          They love to nip each other. We are keeping the fiercest little one whom we call Paddy
          but are giving the others to friends. The coffee bushes are full of lovely white flowers
          and the bees and ants are very busy stealing their honey.

          Yesterday a troop of baboons came down the hill and Dad shot a big one to
          scare the others off. They are a nuisance because they steal the maize and potatoes
          from the native shambas and then there is not enough food for the totos.
          Dad and I are very proud of you for not making a fuss when you went to the
          dentist to have that tooth out.

          Bye bye, my fine little son.
          Three bags full of love from Kate, Dad and Mummy.

          Mchewe 12th February, 1938

          Dearest Family,

          here is some news that will please you. George has been offered and has
          accepted a job as Forester at Mbulu in the Northern Province of Tanganyika. George
          would have preferred a job as Game Ranger, but though the Game Warden, Philip
          Teare, is most anxious to have him in the Game Department, there is no vacancy at
          present. Anyway if one crops up later, George can always transfer from one
          Government Department to another. Poor George, he hates the idea of taking a job. He
          says that hitherto he has always been his own master and he detests the thought of
          being pushed around by anyone.

          Now however he has no choice. Our capitol is almost exhausted and the coffee
          market shows no signs of improving. With three children and another on the way, he
          feels he simply must have a fixed income. I shall be sad to leave this little farm. I love
          our little home and we have been so very happy here, but my heart rejoices at the
          thought of overseas leave every thirty months. Now we shall be able to fetch Ann and
          George from England and in three years time we will all be together in Tanganyika once
          more.

          There is no sale for farms so we will just shut the house and keep on a very small
          labour force just to keep the farm from going derelict. We are eating our hens but will
          take our two dogs, Fanny and Paddy with us.

          One thing I shall be glad to leave is that leopard. She still comes grunting around
          at night but not as badly as she did before. I do not mind at all when George is here but
          until George was accepted for this forestry job I was afraid he might go back to the
          Diggings and I should once more be left alone to be cursed by the leopard’s attentions.
          Knowing how much I dreaded this George was most anxious to shoot the leopard and
          for weeks he kept his shotgun and a powerful torch handy at night.

          One night last week we woke to hear it grunting near the kitchen. We got up very
          quietly and whilst George loaded the shotgun with SSG, I took the torch and got the
          heavy revolver from the cupboard. We crept out onto the dark verandah where George
          whispered to me to not switch on the torch until he had located the leopard. It was pitch
          black outside so all he could do was listen intently. And then of course I spoilt all his
          plans. I trod on the dog’s tin bowl and made a terrific clatter! George ordered me to
          switch on the light but it was too late and the leopard vanished into the long grass of the
          Kalonga, grunting derisively, or so it sounded.

          She never comes into the clearing now but grunts from the hillside just above it.

          Eleanor.

          Mbulu 18th March, 1938

          Dearest Family,

          Journeys end at last. here we are at Mbulu, installed in our new quarters which are
          as different as they possibly could be from our own cosy little home at Mchewe. We
          live now, my dears, in one wing of a sort of ‘Beau Geste’ fort but I’ll tell you more about
          it in my next letter. We only arrived yesterday and have not had time to look around.
          This letter will tell you just about our trip from Mbeya.

          We left the farm in our little red Ford two seater with all our portable goods and
          chattels plus two native servants and the two dogs. Before driving off, George took one
          look at the flattened springs and declared that he would be surprised if we reached
          Mbeya without a breakdown and that we would never make Mbulu with the car so
          overloaded.

          However luck was with us. We reached Mbeya without mishap and at one of the
          local garages saw a sturdy used Ford V8 boxbody car for sale. The garage agreed to
          take our small car as part payment and George drew on our little remaining capitol for the
          rest. We spent that night in the house of the Forest Officer and next morning set out in
          comfort for the Northern Province of Tanganyika.

          I had done the journey from Dodoma to Mbeya seven years before so was
          familiar with the scenery but the road was much improved and the old pole bridges had
          been replaced by modern steel ones. Kate was as good as gold all the way. We
          avoided hotels and camped by the road and she found this great fun.
          The road beyond Dodoma was new to me and very interesting country, flat and
          dry and dusty, as little rain falls there. The trees are mostly thorn trees but here and there
          one sees a giant baobab, weird trees with fantastically thick trunks and fat squat branches
          with meagre foliage. The inhabitants of this area I found interesting though. They are
          called Wagogo and are a primitive people who ape the Masai in dress and customs
          though they are much inferior to the Masai in physique. They are also great herders of
          cattle which, rather surprisingly, appear to thrive in that dry area.

          The scenery alters greatly as one nears Babati, which one approaches by a high
          escarpment from which one has a wonderful view of the Rift Valley. Babati township
          appears to be just a small group of Indian shops and shabby native houses, but I
          believe there are some good farms in the area. Though the little township is squalid,
          there is a beautiful lake and grand mountains to please the eye. We stopped only long
          enough to fill up with petrol and buy some foodstuffs. Beyond Babati there is a tsetse
          fly belt and George warned our two native servants to see that no tsetse flies settled on
          the dogs.

          We stopped for the night in a little rest house on the road about 80 miles from
          Arusha where we were to spend a few days with the Forest Officer before going on to
          Mbulu. I enjoyed this section of the road very much because it runs across wide plains
          which are bounded on the West by the blue mountains of the Rift Valley wall. Here for
          the first time I saw the Masai on their home ground guarding their vast herds of cattle. I
          also saw their strange primitive hovels called Manyattas, with their thorn walled cattle
          bomas and lots of plains game – giraffe, wildebeest, ostriches and antelope. Kate was
          wildly excited and entranced with the game especially the giraffe which stood gazing
          curiously and unafraid of us, often within a few yards of the road.

          Finally we came across the greatest thrill of all, my first view of Mt Meru the extinct
          volcano about 16,000 feet high which towers over Arusha township. The approach to
          Arusha is through flourishing coffee plantations very different alas from our farm at Mchewe. George says that at Arusha coffee growing is still a paying proposition
          because here the yield of berry per acre is much higher than in the Southern highlands
          and here in the North the farmers have not such heavy transport costs as the railway runs
          from Arusha to the port at Tanga.

          We stayed overnight at a rather second rate hotel but the food was good and we
          had hot baths and a good nights rest. Next day Tom Lewis the Forest Officer, fetched
          us and we spent a few days camping in a tent in the Lewis’ garden having meals at their
          home. Both Tom and Lillian Lewis were most friendly. Tom lewis explained to George
          what his work in the Mbulu District was to be, and they took us camping in a Forest
          Reserve where Lillian and her small son David and Kate and I had a lovely lazy time
          amidst beautiful surroundings. Before we left for Mbulu, Lillian took me shopping to buy
          material for curtains for our new home. She described the Forest House at Mbulu to me
          and it sounded delightful but alas, when we reached Mbulu we discovered that the
          Assistant District Officer had moved into the Forest House and we were directed to the
          Fort or Boma. The night before we left Arusha for Mbulu it rained very heavily and the
          road was very treacherous and slippery due to the surface being of ‘black cotton’ soil
          which has the appearance and consistency of chocolate blancmange, after rain. To get to
          Mbulu we had to drive back in the direction of Dodoma for some 70 miles and then turn
          to the right and drive across plains to the Great Rift Valley Wall. The views from this
          escarpment road which climbs this wall are magnificent. At one point one looks down
          upon Lake Manyara with its brilliant white beaches of soda.

          The drive was a most trying one for George. We had no chains for the wheels
          and several times we stuck in the mud and our two houseboys had to put grass and
          branches under the wheels to stop them from spinning. Quite early on in the afternoon
          George gave up all hope of reaching Mbulu that day and planned to spend the night in
          a little bush rest camp at Karatu. However at one point it looked as though we would not
          even reach this resthouse for late afternoon found us properly bogged down in a mess
          of mud at the bottom of a long and very steep hill. In spite of frantic efforts on the part of
          George and the two boys, all now very wet and muddy, the heavy car remained stuck.
          Suddenly five Masai men appeared through the bushes beside the road. They
          were all tall and angular and rather terrifying looking to me. Each wore only a blanket
          knotted over one shoulder and all were armed with spears. They lined up by the side of
          the road and just looked – not hostile but simply aloof and supercilious. George greeted
          them and said in Ki-Swahili, “Help to push and I will reward you.” But they said nothing,
          just drawing back imperceptibly to register disgust at the mere idea of manual labour.
          Their expressions said quite clearly “A Masai is a warrior and does not soil his hands.”
          George then did something which startled them I think, as much as me. He
          plucked their spears from their hands one by one and flung them into the back of the
          boxbody. “Now push!” he said, “And when we are safely out of the mud you shall have
          your spears back.” To my utter astonishment the Masai seemed to applaud George’s
          action. I think they admire courage in a man more than anything else. They pushed with a
          will and soon we were roaring up the long steep slope. “I can’t stop here” quoth George
          as up and up we went. The Masai were in mad pursuit with their blankets streaming
          behind. They took a very steep path which was a shortcut to the top. They are certainly
          amazing athletes and reached the top at the same time as the car. Their route of course
          was shorter but much more steep, yet they came up without any sign of fatigue to claim
          their spears and the money which George handed out with a friendly grin. The Masai
          took the whole episode in good heart and we parted on the most friendly terms.

          After a rather chilly night in the three walled shack, we started on the last lap of our
          journey yesterday morning in bright weather and made the trip to Mbulu without incident.

          Eleanor.

          Mbulu 24th March, 1938

          Dearest Family,

          Mbulu is an attractive station but living in this rather romantic looking fort has many
          disadvantages. Our quarters make up one side of the fort which is built up around a
          hollow square. The buildings are single storied but very tall in the German manner and
          there is a tower on one corner from which the Union Jack flies. The tower room is our
          sitting room, and one has very fine views from the windows of the rolling country side.
          However to reach this room one has to climb a steep flight of cement steps from the
          court yard. Another disadvantage of this tower room is that there is a swarm of bees in
          the roof and the stray ones drift down through holes in the ceiling and buzz angrily
          against the window panes or fly around in a most menacing manner.

          Ours are the only private quarters in the Fort. Two other sides of the Fort are
          used as offices, storerooms and court room and the fourth side is simply a thick wall with
          battlements and loopholes and a huge iron shod double door of enormous thickness
          which is always barred at sunset when the flag is hauled down. Two Police Askari always
          remain in the Fort on guard at night. The effect from outside the whitewashed fort is very
          romantic but inside it is hardly homely and how I miss my garden at Mchewe and the
          grass and trees.

          We have no privacy downstairs because our windows overlook the bare
          courtyard which is filled with Africans patiently waiting to be admitted to the courtroom as
          witnesses or spectators. The outside windows which overlook the valley are heavily
          barred. I can only think that the Germans who built this fort must have been very scared
          of the local natives.

          Our rooms are hardly cosy and are furnished with typical heavy German pieces.
          We have a vast bleak bedroom, a dining room and an enormous gloomy kitchen in
          which meals for the German garrison were cooked. At night this kitchen is alive with
          gigantic rats but fortunately they do not seem to care for the other rooms. To crown
          everything owls hoot and screech at night on the roof.

          On our first day here I wandered outside the fort walls with Kate and came upon a
          neatly fenced plot enclosing the graves of about fifteen South African soldiers killed by
          the Germans in the 1914-18 war. I understand that at least one of theses soldiers died in
          the courtyard here. The story goes, that during the period in the Great War when this fort
          was occupied by a troop of South African Horse, a German named Siedtendorf
          appeared at the great barred door at night and asked to speak to the officer in command
          of the Troop. The officer complied with this request and the small shutter in the door was
          opened so that he could speak with the German. The German, however, had not come
          to speak. When he saw the exposed face of the officer, he fired, killing him, and
          escaped into the dark night. I had this tale on good authority but cannot vouch for it. I do
          know though, that there are two bullet holes in the door beside the shutter. An unhappy
          story to think about when George is away, as he is now, and the moonlight throws queer
          shadows in the court yard and the owls hoot.

          However though I find our quarters depressing, I like Mbulu itself very much. It is
          rolling country, treeless except for the plantations of the Forestry Dept. The land is very
          fertile in the watered valleys but the grass on hills and plains is cropped to the roots by
          the far too numerous cattle and goats. There are very few Europeans on the station, only
          Mr Duncan, the District Officer, whose wife and children recently left for England, the
          Assistant District Officer and his wife, a bachelor Veterinary Officer, a Road Foreman and
          ourselves, and down in the village a German with an American wife and an elderly
          Irishman whom I have not met. The Government officials have a communal vegetable
          garden in the valley below the fort which keeps us well supplied with green stuff. 

          Most afternoons George, Kate and I go for walks after tea. On Fridays there is a
          little ceremony here outside the fort. In the late afternoon a little procession of small
          native schoolboys, headed by a drum and penny whistle band come marching up the
          road to a tune which sounds like ‘Two lovely black eyes”. They form up below our tower
          and as the flag is lowered for the day they play ‘God save the King’, and then march off
          again. It is quite a cheerful little ceremony.

          The local Africans are a skinny lot and, I should say, a poor tribe. They protect
          themselves against the cold by wrapping themselves in cotton blankets or a strip of
          unbleached sheeting. This they drape over their heads, almost covering their faces and
          the rest is wrapped closely round their bodies in the manner of a shroud. A most
          depressing fashion. They live in very primitive comfortless houses. They simply make a
          hollow in the hillside and build a front wall of wattle and daub. Into this rude shelter at night
          go cattle and goats, men, women, and children.

          Mbulu village has the usual mud brick and wattle dukas and wattle and daub
          houses. The chief trader is a Goan who keeps a surprisingly good variety of tinned
          foodstuffs and also sells hardware and soft goods.

          The Europeans here have been friendly but as you will have noted there are
          only two other women on station and no children at all to be companions for Kate.

          Eleanor.

          Mbulu 20th June 1938

          Dearest Family,

          Here we are on Safari with George at Babati where we are occupying a rest
          house on the slopes of Ufiome Mountain. The slopes are a Forest Reserve and
          George is supervising the clearing of firebreaks in preparation for the dry weather. He
          goes off after a very early breakfast and returns home in the late afternoon so Kate and I
          have long lazy days.

          Babati is a pleasant spot and the resthouse is quite comfortable. It is about a mile
          from the village which is just the usual collection of small mud brick and corrugated iron
          Indian Dukas. There are a few settlers in the area growing coffee, or going in for mixed
          farming but I don’t think they are doing very well. The farm adjoining the rest house is
          owned by Lord Lovelace but is run by a manager.

          George says he gets enough exercise clambering about all day on the mountain,
          so Kate and I do our walking in the mornings when George is busy, and we all relax in
          the evenings when George returns from his field work. Kate’s favourite walk is to the big
          block of mtama (sorghum) shambas lower down the hill. There are huge swarms of tiny
          grain eating birds around waiting the chance to plunder the mtama, so the crops are
          watched from sunrise to sunset.

          Crude observation platforms have been erected for this purpose in the centre of
          each field and the women and the young boys of the family concerned, take it in turn to
          occupy the platform and scare the birds. Each watcher has a sling and uses clods of
          earth for ammunition. The clod is placed in the centre of the sling which is then whirled
          around at arms length. Suddenly one end of the sling is released and the clod of earth
          flies out and shatters against the mtama stalks. The sling makes a loud whip like crack and
          the noise is quite startling and very effective in keeping the birds at a safe distance.

          Eleanor.

          Karatu 3rd July 1938

          Dearest Family,

          Still on safari you see! We left Babati ten days ago and passed through Mbulu
          on our way to this spot. We slept out of doors one night beside Lake Tiawa about eight
          miles from Mbulu. It was a peaceful spot and we enjoyed watching the reflection of the
          sunset on the lake and the waterhens and duck and pelicans settling down for the night.
          However it turned piercingly cold after sunset so we had an early supper and then all
          three of us lay down to sleep in the back of the boxbody (station wagon). It was a tight
          fit and a real case of ‘When Dad turns, we all turn.’

          Here at Karatu we are living in a grass hut with only three walls. It is rather sweet
          and looks like the setting for a Nativity Play. Kate and I share the only camp bed and
          George and the dogs sleep on the floor. The air here is very fresh and exhilarating and
          we all feel very fit. George is occupied all day supervising the cutting of firebreaks
          around existing plantations and the forest reserve of indigenous trees. Our camp is on
          the hillside and below us lie the fertile wheat lands of European farmers.

          They are mostly Afrikaners, the descendants of the Boer families who were
          invited by the Germans to settle here after the Boer War. Most of them are pro-British
          now and a few have called in here to chat to George about big game hunting. George
          gets on extremely well with them and recently attended a wedding where he had a
          lively time dancing at the reception. He likes the older people best as most are great
          individualists. One fine old man, surnamed von Rooyen, visited our camp. He is a Boer
          of the General Smuts type with spare figure and bearded face. George tells me he is a
          real patriarch with an enormous family – mainly sons. This old farmer fought against the
          British throughout the Boer War under General Smuts and again against the British in the
          German East Africa campaign when he was a scout and right hand man to Von Lettow. It
          is said that Von Lettow was able to stay in the field until the end of the Great War
          because he listened to the advise given to him by von Rooyen. However his dislike for
          the British does not extend to George as they have a mutual interest in big game
          hunting.

          Kate loves being on safari. She is now so accustomed to having me as her nurse
          and constant companion that I do not know how she will react to paid help. I shall have to
          get someone to look after her during my confinement in the little German Red Cross
          hospital at Oldeani.

          George has obtained permission from the District Commissioner, for Kate and
          me to occupy the Government Rest House at Oldeani from the end of July until the end
          of August when my baby is due. He will have to carry on with his field work but will join
          us at weekends whenever possible.

          Eleanor.

          Karatu 12th July 1938

          Dearest Family,

          Not long now before we leave this camp. We have greatly enjoyed our stay
          here in spite of the very chilly earl mornings and the nights when we sit around in heavy
          overcoats until our early bed time.

          Last Sunday I persuaded George to take Kate and me to the famous Ngoro-
          Ngoro Crater. He was not very keen to do so because the road is very bumpy for
          anyone in my interesting condition but I feel so fit that I was most anxious to take this
          opportunity of seeing the enormous crater. We may never be in this vicinity again and in
          any case safari will not be so simple with a small baby.

          What a wonderful trip it was! The road winds up a steep escarpment from which
          one gets a glorious birds eye view of the plains of the Great Rift Valley far, far below.
          The crater is immense. There is a road which skirts the rim in places and one has quite
          startling views of the floor of the crater about two thousand feet below.

          A camp for tourists has just been built in a clearing in the virgin forest. It is most
          picturesque as the camp buildings are very neatly constructed log cabins with very high
          pitched thatched roofs. We spent about an hour sitting on the grass near the edge of the
          crater enjoying the sunshine and the sharp air and really awe inspiring view. Far below us
          in the middle of the crater was a small lake and we could see large herds of game
          animals grazing there but they were too far away to be impressive, even seen through
          George’s field glasses. Most appeared to be wildebeest and zebra but I also picked
          out buffalo. Much more exciting was my first close view of a wild elephant. George
          pointed him out to me as we approached the rest camp on the inward journey. He
          stood quietly under a tree near the road and did not seem to be disturbed by the car
          though he rolled a wary eye in our direction. On our return journey we saw him again at
          almost uncomfortably close quarters. We rounded a sharp corner and there stood the
          elephant, facing us and slap in the middle of the road. He was busily engaged giving
          himself a dust bath but spared time to give us an irritable look. Fortunately we were on a
          slight slope so George quickly switched off the engine and backed the car quietly round
          the corner. He got out of the car and loaded his rifle, just in case! But after he had finished
          his toilet the elephant moved off the road and we took our chance and passed without
          incident.

          One notices the steepness of the Ngoro-Ngoro road more on the downward
          journey than on the way up. The road is cut into the side of the mountain so that one has
          a steep slope on one hand and a sheer drop on the other. George told me that a lorry
          coming down the mountain was once charged from behind by a rhino. On feeling and
          hearing the bash from behind the panic stricken driver drove off down the mountain as
          fast as he dared and never paused until he reached level ground at the bottom of the
          mountain. There was no sign of the rhino so the driver got out to examine his lorry and
          found the rhino horn embedded in the wooden tail end of the lorry. The horn had been
          wrenched right off!

          Happily no excitement of that kind happened to us. I have yet to see a rhino.

          Eleanor.

          Oldeani. 19th July 1938

          Dearest Family,

          Greetings from a lady in waiting! Kate and I have settled down comfortably in the
          new, solidly built Government Rest House which comprises one large living room and
          one large office with a connecting door. Outside there is a kitchen and a boys quarter.
          There are no resident Government officials here at Oldeani so the office is in use only
          when the District Officer from Mbulu makes his monthly visit. However a large Union
          Jack flies from a flagpole in the front of the building as a gentle reminder to the entirely
          German population of Oldeani that Tanganyika is now under British rule.

          There is quite a large community of German settlers here, most of whom are
          engaged in coffee farming. George has visited several of the farms in connection with his
          forestry work and says the coffee plantations look very promising indeed. There are also
          a few German traders in the village and there is a large boarding school for German
          children and also a very pleasant little hospital where I have arranged to have the baby.
          Right next door to the Rest House is a General Dealers Store run by a couple named
          Schnabbe. The shop is stocked with drapery, hardware, china and foodstuffs all
          imported from Germany and of very good quality. The Schnabbes also sell local farm
          produce, beautiful fresh vegetables, eggs and pure rich milk and farm butter. Our meat
          comes from a German butchery and it is a great treat to get clean, well cut meat. The
          sausages also are marvellous and in great variety.

          The butcher is an entertaining character. When he called round looking for custom I
          expected him to break out in a yodel any minute, as it was obvious from a glance that
          the Alps are his natural background. From under a green Tyrollean hat with feather,
          blooms a round beefy face with sparkling small eyes and such widely spaced teeth that
          one inevitably thinks of a garden rake. Enormous beefy thighs bulge from greasy
          lederhosen which are supported by the traditional embroidered braces. So far the
          butcher is the only cheery German, male or female, whom I have seen, and I have met
          most of the locals at the Schnabbe’s shop. Most of the men seem to have cultivated
          the grim Hitler look. They are all fanatical Nazis and one is usually greeted by a raised
          hand and Heil Hitler! All very theatrical. I always feel like crying in ringing tones ‘God
          Save the King’ or even ‘St George for England’. However the men are all very correct
          and courteous and the women friendly. The women all admire Kate and cry, “Ag, das
          kleine Englander.” She really is a picture with her rosy cheeks and huge grey eyes and
          golden curls. Kate is having a wonderful time playing with Manfried, the Scnabbe’s small
          son. Neither understands a word said by the other but that doesn’t seem to worry them.

          Before he left on safari, George took me to hospital for an examination by the
          nurse, Sister Marianne. She has not been long in the country and knows very little
          English but is determined to learn and carried on an animated, if rather quaint,
          conversation with frequent references to a pocket dictionary. She says I am not to worry
          because there is not doctor here. She is a very experienced midwife and anyway in an
          emergency could call on the old retired Veterinary Surgeon for assistance.
          I asked sister Marianne whether she knew of any German woman or girl who
          would look after Kate whilst I am in hospital and today a very top drawer German,
          bearing a strong likeness to ‘Little Willie’, called and offered the services of his niece who
          is here on a visit from Germany. I was rather taken aback and said, “Oh no Baron, your
          niece would not be the type I had in mind. I’m afraid I cannot pay much for a companion.”
          However the Baron was not to be discouraged. He told me that his niece is seventeen
          but looks twenty, that she is well educated and will make a cheerful companion. Her
          father wishes her to learn to speak English fluently and that is why the Baron wished her
          to come to me as a house daughter. As to pay, a couple of pounds a month for pocket
          money and her keep was all he had in mind. So with some misgivings I agreed to take
          the niece on as a companion as from 1st August.

          Eleanor.

          Oldeani. 10th August 1938

          Dearest Family,

          Never a dull moment since my young companion arrived. She is a striking looking
          girl with a tall boyish figure and very short and very fine dark hair which she wears
          severely slicked back. She wears tweeds, no make up but has shiny rosy cheeks and
          perfect teeth – she also,inevitably, has a man friend and I have an uncomfortable
          suspicion that it is because of him that she was planted upon me. Upon second
          thoughts though, maybe it was because of her excessive vitality, or even because of
          her healthy appetite! The Baroness, I hear is in poor health and I can imagine that such
          abundant health and spirit must have been quite overpowering. The name is Ingeborg,
          but she is called Mouche, which I believe means Mouse. Someone in her family must
          have a sense of humour.

          Her English only needed practice and she now chatters fluently so that I know her
          background and views on life. Mouche’s father is a personal friend of Goering. He was
          once a big noise in the German Airforce but is now connected with the car industry and
          travels frequently and intensively in Europe and America on business. Mouche showed
          me some snap shots of her family and I must say they look prosperous and charming.
          Mouche tells me that her father wants her to learn to speak English fluently so that
          she can get a job with some British diplomat in Cairo. I had immediate thought that I
          might be nursing a future Mata Hari in my bosom, but this was immediately extinguished
          when Mouche remarked that her father would like her to marry an Englishman. However
          it seems that the mere idea revolts her. “Englishmen are degenerates who swill whisky
          all day.” I pointed out that she had met George, who was a true blue Englishman, but
          was nevertheless a fine physical specimen and certainly didn’t drink all day. Mouche
          replied that George is not an Englishman but a hunter, as though that set him apart.
          Mouche is an ardent Hitler fan and an enthusiastic member of the Hitler Youth
          Movement. The house resounds with Hitler youth songs and when she is not singing,
          her gramophone is playing very stirring marching songs. I cannot understand a word,
          which is perhaps as well. Every day she does the most strenuous exercises watched
          with envy by me as my proportions are now those of a circus Big Top. Mouche eats a
          fantastic amount of meat and I feel it is a blessing that she is much admired by our
          Tyrollean butcher who now delivers our meat in person and adds as a token of his
          admiration some extra sausages for Mouche.

          I must confess I find her stimulating company as George is on safari most of the
          time and my evenings otherwise would be lonely. I am a little worried though about
          leaving Kate here with Mouche when I go to hospital. The dogs and Kate have not taken
          to her. I am trying to prepare Kate for the separation but she says, “She’s not my
          mummy. You are my dear mummy, and I want you, I want you.” George has got
          permission from the Provincial Forestry Officer to spend the last week of August here at
          the Rest House with me and I only hope that the baby will be born during that time.
          Kate adores her dad and will be perfectly happy to remain here with him.

          One final paragraph about Mouche. I thought all German girls were domesticated
          but not Mouche. I have Kesho-Kutwa here with me as cook and I have engaged a local
          boy to do the laundry. I however expected Mouche would take over making the
          puddings and pastry but she informed me that she can only bake a chocolate cake and
          absolutely nothing else. She said brightly however that she would do the mending. As
          there is none for her to do, she has rescued a large worn handkerchief of George’s and
          sits with her feet up listening to stirring gramophone records whilst she mends the
          handkerchief with exquisite darning.

          Eleanor.

          Oldeani. 20th August 1938

          Dearest Family,

          Just after I had posted my last letter I received what George calls a demi official
          letter from the District Officer informing me that I would have to move out of the Rest
          House for a few days as the Governor and his hangers on would be visiting Oldeani
          and would require the Rest House. Fortunately George happened to be here for a few
          hours and he arranged for Kate and Mouche and me to spend a few days at the
          German School as borders. So here I am at the school having a pleasant and restful
          time and much entertained by all the goings on.

          The school buildings were built with funds from Germany and the school is run on
          the lines of a contemporary German school. I think the school gets a grant from the
          Tanganyika Government towards running expenses, but I am not sure. The school hall is
          dominated by a more than life sized oil painting of Adolf Hitler which, at present, is
          flanked on one side by the German Flag and on the other by the Union Jack. I cannot
          help feeling that the latter was put up today for the Governor’s visit today.
          The teachers are very amiable. We all meet at mealtimes, and though few of the
          teachers speak English, the ones who do are anxious to chatter. The headmaster is a
          scholarly man but obviously anti-British. He says he cannot understand why so many
          South Africans are loyal to Britain – or rather to England. “They conquered your country
          didn’t they?” I said that that had never occurred to me and that anyway I was mainly of
          Scots descent and that loyalty to the crown was natural to me. “But the English
          conquered the Scots and yet you are loyal to England. That I cannot understand.” “Well I
          love England,” said I firmly, ”and so do all British South Africans.” Since then we have
          stuck to English literature. Shakespeare, Lord Byron and Galsworthy seem to be the
          favourites and all, thank goodness, make safe topics for conversation.
          Mouche is in her element but Kate and I do not enjoy the food which is typically
          German and consists largely of masses of fat pork and sauerkraut and unfamiliar soups. I
          feel sure that the soup at lunch today had blobs of lemon curd in it! I also find most
          disconcerting the way that everyone looks at me and says, “Bon appetite”, with much
          smiling and nodding so I have to fight down my nausea and make a show of enjoying
          the meals.

          The teacher whose room adjoins mine is a pleasant woman and I take my
          afternoon tea with her. She, like all the teachers, has a large framed photo of Hitler on her
          wall flanked by bracket vases of fresh flowers. One simply can’t get away from the man!
          Even in the dormitories each child has a picture of Hitler above the bed. Hitler accepting
          flowers from a small girl, or patting a small boy on the head. Even the children use the
          greeting ‘Heil Hitler’. These German children seem unnaturally prim when compared with
          my cheerful ex-pupils in South Africa but some of them are certainly very lovely to look
          at.

          Tomorrow Mouche, Kate and I return to our quarters in the Rest House and in a
          few days George will join us for a week.

          Eleanor.

          Oldeani Hospital. 9th September 1938

          Dearest Family,

          You will all be delighted to hear that we have a second son, whom we have
          named John. He is a darling, so quaint and good. He looks just like a little old man with a
          high bald forehead fringed around the edges with a light brown fluff. George and I call
          him Johnny Jo because he has a tiny round mouth and a rather big nose and reminds us
          of A.A.Milne’s ‘Jonathan Jo has a mouth like an O’ , but Kate calls him, ‘My brother John’.
          George was not here when he was born on September 5th, just two minutes
          before midnight. He left on safari on the morning of the 4th and, of course, that very night
          the labour pains started. Fortunately Kate was in bed asleep so Mouche walked with
          me up the hill to the hospital where I was cheerfully received by Sister Marianne who
          had everything ready for the confinement. I was lucky to have such an experienced
          midwife because this was a breech birth and sister had to manage single handed. As
          there was no doctor present I was not allowed even a sniff of anaesthetic. Sister slaved
          away by the light of a pressure lamp endeavouring to turn the baby having first shoved
          an inverted baby bath under my hips to raise them.

          What a performance! Sister Marianne was very much afraid that she might not be
          able to save the baby and great was our relief when at last she managed to haul him out
          by the feet. One slap and the baby began to cry without any further attention so Sister
          wrapped him up in a blanket and took Johnny to her room for the night. I got very little
          sleep but was so thankful to have the ordeal over that I did not mind even though I
          heard a hyaena cackling and calling under my window in a most evil way.
          When Sister brought Johnny to me in the early morning I stared in astonishment.
          Instead of dressing him in one of his soft Viyella nighties, she had dressed him in a short
          sleeved vest of knitted cotton with a cotton cloth swayed around his waist sarong
          fashion. When I protested, “But Sister why is the baby not dressed in his own clothes?”
          She answered firmly, “I find it is not allowed. A baby’s clotheses must be boiled and I
          cannot boil clotheses of wool therefore your baby must wear the clotheses of the Red
          Cross.”

          It was the same with the bedding. Poor Johnny lies all day in a deep wicker
          basket with a detachable calico lining. There is no pillow under his head but a vast kind of
          calico covered pillow is his only covering. There is nothing at all cosy and soft round my
          poor baby. I said crossly to the Sister, “As every thing must be so sterile, I wonder you
          don’t boil me too.” This she ignored.

          When my message reached George he dashed back to visit us. Sister took him
          first to see the baby and George was astonished to see the baby basket covered by a
          sheet. “She has the poor little kid covered up like a bloody parrot,” he told me. So I
          asked him to go at once to buy a square of mosquito netting to replace the sheet.
          Kate is quite a problem. She behaves like an Angel when she is here in my
          room but is rebellious when Sister shoos her out. She says she “Hates the Nanny”
          which is what she calls Mouche. Unfortunately it seems that she woke before midnight
          on the night Johnny Jo was born to find me gone and Mouche in my bed. According to
          Mouche, Kate wept all night and certainly when she visited me in the early morning
          Kate’s face was puffy with crying and she clung to me crying “Oh my dear mummy, why
          did you go away?” over and over again. Sister Marianne was touched and suggested
          that Mouche and Kate should come to the hospital as boarders as I am the only patient
          at present and there is plenty of room. Luckily Kate does not seem at all jealous of the
          baby and it is a great relief to have here here under my eye.

          Eleanor.

          #6262
          TracyTracy
          Participant

            From Tanganyika with Love

            continued  ~ part 3

            With thanks to Mike Rushby.

            Mchewe Estate. 22nd March 1935

            Dearest Family,

            I am feeling much better now that I am five months pregnant and have quite got
            my appetite back. Once again I go out with “the Mchewe Hunt” which is what George
            calls the procession made up of the donkey boy and donkey with Ann confidently riding
            astride, me beside the donkey with Georgie behind riding the stick which he much
            prefers to the donkey. The Alsatian pup, whom Ann for some unknown reason named
            ‘Tubbage’, and the two cats bring up the rear though sometimes Tubbage rushes
            ahead and nearly knocks me off my feet. He is not the loveable pet that Kelly was.
            It is just as well that I have recovered my health because my mother-in-law has
            decided to fly out from England to look after Ann and George when I am in hospital. I am
            very grateful for there is no one lse to whom I can turn. Kath Hickson-Wood is seldom on
            their farm because Hicky is working a guano claim and is making quite a good thing out of
            selling bat guano to the coffee farmers at Mbosi. They camp out at the claim, a series of
            caves in the hills across the valley and visit the farm only occasionally. Anne Molteno is
            off to Cape Town to have her baby at her mothers home and there are no women in
            Mbeya I know well. The few women are Government Officials wives and they come
            and go. I make so few trips to the little town that there is no chance to get on really
            friendly terms with them.

            Janey, the ayah, is turning into a treasure. She washes and irons well and keeps
            the children’s clothes cupboard beautifully neat. Ann and George however are still
            reluctant to go for walks with her. They find her dull because, like all African ayahs, she
            has no imagination and cannot play with them. She should however be able to help with
            the baby. Ann is very excited about the new baby. She so loves all little things.
            Yesterday she went into ecstasies over ten newly hatched chicks.

            She wants a little sister and perhaps it would be a good thing. Georgie is so very
            active and full of mischief that I feel another wild little boy might be more than I can
            manage. Although Ann is older, it is Georgie who always thinks up the mischief. They
            have just been having a fight. Georgie with the cooks umbrella versus Ann with her frilly
            pink sunshade with the inevitable result that the sunshade now has four broken ribs.
            Any way I never feel lonely now during the long hours George is busy on the
            shamba. The children keep me on my toes and I have plenty of sewing to do for the
            baby. George is very good about amusing the children before their bedtime and on
            Sundays. In the afternoons when it is not wet I take Ann and Georgie for a walk down
            the hill. George meets us at the bottom and helps me on the homeward journey. He
            grabs one child in each hand by the slack of their dungarees and they do a sort of giant
            stride up the hill, half walking half riding.

            Very much love,
            Eleanor.

            Mchewe Estate. 14th June 1935

            Dearest Family,

            A great flap here. We had a letter yesterday to say that mother-in-law will be
            arriving in four days time! George is very amused at my frantic efforts at spring cleaning
            but he has told me before that she is very house proud so I feel I must make the best
            of what we have.

            George is very busy building a store for the coffee which will soon be ripening.
            This time he is doing the bricklaying himself. It is quite a big building on the far end of the
            farm and close to the river. He is also making trays of chicken wire nailed to wooden
            frames with cheap calico stretched over the wire.

            Mother will have to sleep in the verandah room which leads off the bedroom
            which we share with the children. George will have to sleep in the outside spare room as
            there is no door between the bedroom and the verandah room. I am sewing frantically
            to make rose coloured curtains and bedspread out of material mother-in-law sent for
            Christmas and will have to make a curtain for the doorway. The kitchen badly needs
            whitewashing but George says he cannot spare the labour so I hope mother won’t look.
            To complicate matters, George has been invited to lunch with the Governor on the day
            of Mother’s arrival. After lunch they are to visit the newly stocked trout streams in the
            Mporotos. I hope he gets back to Mbeya in good time to meet mother’s plane.
            Ann has been off colour for a week. She looks very pale and her pretty fair hair,
            normally so shiny, is dull and lifeless. It is such a pity that mother should see her like this
            because first impressions do count so much and I am looking to the children to attract
            attention from me. I am the size of a circus tent and hardly a dream daughter-in-law.
            Georgie, thank goodness, is blooming but he has suddenly developed a disgusting
            habit of spitting on the floor in the manner of the natives. I feel he might say “Gran, look
            how far I can spit and give an enthusiastic demonstration.

            Just hold thumbs that all goes well.

            your loving but anxious,
            Eleanor.

            Mchewe Estate. 28th June 1935

            Dearest Family,

            Mother-in-law duly arrived in the District Commissioner’s car. George did not dare
            to use the A.C. as she is being very temperamental just now. They also brought the
            mail bag which contained a parcel of lovely baby clothes from you. Thank you very
            much. Mother-in-law is very put out because the large parcel she posted by surface
            mail has not yet arrived.

            Mother arrived looking very smart in an ankle length afternoon frock of golden
            brown crepe and smart hat, and wearing some very good rings. She is a very
            handsome woman with the very fair complexion that goes with red hair. The hair, once
            Titan, must now be grey but it has been very successfully tinted and set. I of course,
            was shapeless in a cotton maternity frock and no credit to you. However, so far, motherin-
            law has been uncritical and friendly and charmed with the children who have taken to
            her. Mother does not think that the children resemble me in any way. Ann resembles her
            family the Purdys and Georgie is a Morley, her mother’s family. She says they had the
            same dark eyes and rather full mouths. I say feebly, “But Georgie has my colouring”, but
            mother won’t hear of it. So now you know! Ann is a Purdy and Georgie a Morley.
            Perhaps number three will be a Leslie.

            What a scramble I had getting ready for mother. Her little room really looks pretty
            and fresh, but the locally woven grass mats arrived only minutes before mother did. I
            also frantically overhauled our clothes and it a good thing that I did so because mother
            has been going through all the cupboards looking for mending. Mother is kept so busy
            in her own home that I think she finds time hangs on her hands here. She is very good at
            entertaining the children and has even tried her hand at picking coffee a couple of times.
            Mother cannot get used to the native boy servants but likes Janey, so Janey keeps her
            room in order. Mother prefers to wash and iron her own clothes.

            I almost lost our cook through mother’s surplus energy! Abel our previous cook
            took a new wife last month and, as the new wife, and Janey the old, were daggers
            drawn, Abel moved off to a job on the Lupa leaving Janey and her daughter here.
            The new cook is capable, but he is a fearsome looking individual called Alfani. He has a
            thick fuzz of hair which he wears long, sometimes hidden by a dingy turban, and he
            wears big brass earrings. I think he must be part Somali because he has a hawk nose
            and a real Brigand look. His kitchen is never really clean but he is an excellent cook and
            as cooks are hard to come by here I just keep away from the kitchen. Not so mother!
            A few days after her arrival she suggested kindly that I should lie down after lunch
            so I rested with the children whilst mother, unknown to me, went out to the kitchen and
            not only scrubbed the table and shelves but took the old iron stove to pieces and
            cleaned that. Unfortunately in her zeal she poked a hole through the stove pipe.
            Had I known of these activities I would have foreseen the cook’s reaction when
            he returned that evening to cook the supper. he was furious and wished to leave on the
            spot and demanded his wages forthwith. The old Memsahib had insulted him by
            scrubbing his already spotless kitchen and had broken his stove and made it impossible
            for him to cook. This tirade was accompanied by such waving of hands and rolling of
            eyes that I longed to sack him on the spot. However I dared not as I might not get
            another cook for weeks. So I smoothed him down and he patched up the stove pipe
            with a bit of tin and some wire and produced a good meal. I am wondering what
            transformations will be worked when I am in hospital.

            Our food is really good but mother just pecks at it. No wonder really, because
            she has had some shocks. One day she found the kitchen boy diligently scrubbing the box lavatory seat with a scrubbing brush which he dipped into one of my best large
            saucepans! No one can foresee what these boys will do. In these remote areas house
            servants are usually recruited from the ranks of the very primitive farm labourers, who first
            come to the farm as naked savages, and their notions of hygiene simply don’t exist.
            One day I said to mother in George’s presence “When we were newly married,
            mother, George used to brag about your cooking and say that you would run a home
            like this yourself with perhaps one ‘toto’. Mother replied tartly, “That was very bad of
            George and not true. If my husband had brought me out here I would not have stayed a
            month. I think you manage very well.” Which reply made me warm to mother a lot.
            To complicate things we have a new pup, a little white bull terrier bitch whom
            George has named Fanny. She is tiny and not yet house trained but seems a plucky
            and attractive little animal though there is no denying that she does look like a piglet.

            Very much love to all,
            Eleanor.

            Mchewe Estate. 3rd August 1935

            Dearest Family,

            Here I am in hospital, comfortably in bed with our new daughter in her basket
            beside me. She is a lovely little thing, very plump and cuddly and pink and white and
            her head is covered with tiny curls the colour of Golden Syrup. We meant to call her
            Margery Kate, after our Marj and my mother-in-law whose name is Catherine.
            I am enjoying the rest, knowing that George and mother will be coping
            successfully on the farm. My room is full of flowers, particularly with the roses and
            carnations which grow so well here. Kate was not due until August 5th but the doctor
            wanted me to come in good time in view of my tiresome early pregnancy.

            For weeks beforehand George had tinkered with the A.C. and we started for
            Mbeya gaily enough on the twenty ninth, however, after going like a dream for a couple
            of miles, she simply collapsed from exhaustion at the foot of a hill and all the efforts of
            the farm boys who had been sent ahead for such an emergency failed to start her. So
            George sent back to the farm for the machila and I sat in the shade of a tree, wondering
            what would happen if I had the baby there and then, whilst George went on tinkering
            with the car. Suddenly she sprang into life and we roared up that hill and all the way into
            Mbeya. The doctor welcomed us pleasantly and we had tea with his family before I
            settled into my room. Later he examined me and said that it was unlikely that the baby
            would be born for several days. The new and efficient German nurse said, “Thank
            goodness for that.” There was a man in hospital dying from a stomach cancer and she
            had not had a decent nights sleep for three nights.

            Kate however had other plans. I woke in the early morning with labour pains but
            anxious not to disturb the nurse, I lay and read or tried to read a book, hoping that I
            would not have to call the nurse until daybreak. However at four a.m., I went out into the
            wind which was howling along the open verandah and knocked on the nurse’s door. She
            got up and very crossly informed me that I was imagining things and should get back to
            bed at once. She said “It cannot be so. The Doctor has said it.” I said “Of course it is,”
            and then and there the water broke and clinched my argument. She then went into a flat
            spin. “But the bed is not ready and my instruments are not ready,” and she flew around
            to rectify this and also sent an African orderly to call the doctor. I paced the floor saying
            warningly “Hurry up with that bed. I am going to have the baby now!” She shrieked
            “Take off your dressing gown.” But I was passed caring. I flung myself on the bed and
            there was Kate. The nurse had done all that was necessary by the time the doctor
            arrived.

            A funny thing was, that whilst Kate was being born on the bed, a black cat had
            kittens under it! The doctor was furious with the nurse but the poor thing must have crept
            in out of the cold wind when I went to call the nurse. A happy omen I feel for the baby’s
            future. George had no anxiety this time. He stayed at the hospital with me until ten
            o’clock when he went down to the hotel to sleep and he received the news in a note
            from me with his early morning tea. He went to the farm next morning but will return on
            the sixth to fetch me home.

            I do feel so happy. A very special husband and three lovely children. What
            more could anyone possibly want.

            Lots and lots of love,
            Eleanor.

            Mchewe Estate. 20th August 1935

            Dearest Family,

            Well here we are back at home and all is very well. The new baby is very placid
            and so pretty. Mother is delighted with her and Ann loved her at sight but Georgie is not
            so sure. At first he said, “Your baby is no good. Chuck her in the kalonga.” The kalonga
            being the ravine beside the house , where, I regret to say, much of the kitchen refuse is
            dumped. he is very jealous when I carry Kate around or feed her but is ready to admire
            her when she is lying alone in her basket.

            George walked all the way from the farm to fetch us home. He hired a car and
            native driver from the hotel, but drove us home himself going with such care over ruts
            and bumps. We had a great welcome from mother who had had the whole house
            spring cleaned. However George loyally says it looks just as nice when I am in charge.
            Mother obviously, had had more than enough of the back of beyond and
            decided to stay on only one week after my return home. She had gone into the kitchen
            one day just in time to see the houseboy scooping the custard he had spilt on the table
            back into the jug with the side of his hand. No doubt it would have been served up
            without a word. On another occasion she had walked in on the cook’s daily ablutions. He
            was standing in a small bowl of water in the centre of the kitchen, absolutely naked,
            enjoying a slipper bath. She left last Wednesday and gave us a big laugh before she
            left. She never got over her horror of eating food prepared by our cook and used to
            push it around her plate. Well, when the time came for mother to leave for the plane, she
            put on the very smart frock in which she had arrived, and then came into the sitting room
            exclaiming in dismay “Just look what has happened, I must have lost a stone!’ We
            looked, and sure enough, the dress which had been ankle deep before, now touched
            the floor. “Good show mother.” said George unfeelingly. “You ought to be jolly grateful,
            you needed to lose weight and it would have cost you the earth at a beauty parlour to
            get that sylph-like figure.”

            When mother left she took, in a perforated matchbox, one of the frilly mantis that
            live on our roses. She means to keep it in a goldfish bowl in her dining room at home.
            Georgie and Ann filled another matchbox with dead flies for food for the mantis on the
            journey.

            Now that mother has left, Georgie and Ann attach themselves to me and firmly
            refuse to have anything to do with the ayah,Janey. She in any case now wishes to have
            a rest. Mother tipped her well and gave her several cotton frocks so I suspect she wants
            to go back to her hometown in Northern Rhodesia to show off a bit.
            Georgie has just sidled up with a very roguish look. He asked “You like your
            baby?” I said “Yes indeed I do.” He said “I’ll prick your baby with a velly big thorn.”

            Who would be a mother!
            Eleanor

            Mchewe Estate. 20th September 1935

            Dearest Family,

            I have been rather in the wars with toothache and as there is still no dentist at
            Mbeya to do the fillings, I had to have four molars extracted at the hospital. George
            says it is fascinating to watch me at mealtimes these days because there is such a gleam
            of satisfaction in my eye when I do manage to get two teeth to meet on a mouthful.
            About those scissors Marj sent Ann. It was not such a good idea. First she cut off tufts of
            George’s hair so that he now looks like a bad case of ringworm and then she cut a scalp
            lock, a whole fist full of her own shining hair, which George so loves. George scolded
            Ann and she burst into floods of tears. Such a thing as a scolding from her darling daddy
            had never happened before. George immediately made a long drooping moustache
            out of the shorn lock and soon had her smiling again. George is always very gentle with
            Ann. One has to be , because she is frightfully sensitive to criticism.

            I am kept pretty busy these days, Janey has left and my houseboy has been ill
            with pneumonia. I now have to wash all the children’s things and my own, (the cook does
            George’s clothes) and look after the three children. Believe me, I can hardly keep awake
            for Kate’s ten o’clock feed.

            I do hope I shall get some new servants next month because I also got George
            to give notice to the cook. I intercepted him last week as he was storming down the hill
            with my large kitchen knife in his hand. “Where are you going with my knife?” I asked.
            “I’m going to kill a man!” said Alfani, rolling his eyes and looking extremely ferocious. “He
            has taken my wife.” “Not with my knife”, said I reaching for it. So off Alfani went, bent on
            vengeance and I returned the knife to the kitchen. Dinner was served and I made no
            enquiries but I feel that I need someone more restful in the kitchen than our brigand
            Alfani.

            George has been working on the car and has now fitted yet another radiator. This
            is a lorry one and much too tall to be covered by the A.C.’s elegant bonnet which is
            secured by an old strap. The poor old A.C. now looks like an ancient shoe with a turned
            up toe. It only needs me in it with the children to make a fine illustration to the old rhyme!
            Ann and Georgie are going through a climbing phase. They practically live in
            trees. I rushed out this morning to investigate loud screams and found Georgie hanging
            from a fork in a tree by one ankle, whilst Ann stood below on tiptoe with hands stretched
            upwards to support his head.

            Do I sound as though I have straws in my hair? I have.
            Lots of love,
            Eleanor.

            Mchewe Estate. 11th October 1935

            Dearest Family,

            Thank goodness! I have a new ayah name Mary. I had heard that there was a
            good ayah out of work at Tukuyu 60 miles away so sent a messenger to fetch her. She
            arrived after dark wearing a bright dress and a cheerful smile and looked very suitable by
            the light of a storm lamp. I was horrified next morning to see her in daylight. She was
            dressed all in black and had a rather sinister look. She reminds me rather of your old maid
            Candace who overheard me laughing a few days before Ann was born and croaked
            “Yes , Miss Eleanor, today you laugh but next week you might be dead.” Remember
            how livid you were, dad?

            I think Mary has the same grim philosophy. Ann took one look at her and said,
            “What a horrible old lady, mummy.” Georgie just said “Go away”, both in English and Ki-
            Swahili. Anyway Mary’s references are good so I shall keep her on to help with Kate
            who is thriving and bonny and placid.

            Thank you for the offer of toys for Christmas but, if you don’t mind, I’d rather have
            some clothing for the children. Ann is quite contented with her dolls Barbara and Yvonne.
            Barbara’s once beautiful face is now pieced together like a jigsaw puzzle having come
            into contact with Georgie’s ever busy hammer. However Ann says she will love her for
            ever and she doesn’t want another doll. Yvonne’s hay day is over too. She
            disappeared for weeks and we think Fanny, the pup, was the culprit. Ann discovered
            Yvonne one morning in some long wet weeds. Poor Yvonne is now a ghost of her
            former self. All the sophisticated make up was washed off her papier-mâché face and
            her hair is decidedly bedraggled, but Ann was radiant as she tucked her back into bed
            and Yvonne is as precious to Ann as she ever was.

            Georgie simply does not care for toys. His paint box, hammer and the trenching
            hoe George gave him for his second birthday are all he wants or needs. Both children
            love books but I sometimes wonder whether they stimulate Ann’s imagination too much.
            The characters all become friends of hers and she makes up stories about them to tell
            Georgie. She adores that illustrated children’s Bible Mummy sent her but you would be
            astonished at the yarns she spins about “me and my friend Jesus.” She also will call
            Moses “Old Noses”, and looking at a picture of Jacob’s dream, with the shining angels
            on the ladder between heaven and earth, she said “Georgie, if you see an angel, don’t
            touch it, it’s hot.”

            Eleanor.

            Mchewe Estate. 17th October 1935

            Dearest Family,

            I take back the disparaging things I said about my new Ayah, because she has
            proved her worth in an unexpected way. On Wednesday morning I settled Kate in he
            cot after her ten o’clock feed and sat sewing at the dining room table with Ann and
            Georgie opposite me, both absorbed in painting pictures in identical seed catalogues.
            Suddenly there was a terrific bang on the back door, followed by an even heavier blow.
            The door was just behind me and I got up and opened it. There, almost filling the door
            frame, stood a huge native with staring eyes and his teeth showing in a mad grimace. In
            his hand he held a rolled umbrella by the ferrule, the shaft I noticed was unusually long
            and thick and the handle was a big round knob.

            I was terrified as you can imagine, especially as, through the gap under the
            native’s raised arm, I could see the new cook and the kitchen boy running away down to
            the shamba! I hastily tried to shut and lock the door but the man just brushed me aside.
            For a moment he stood over me with the umbrella raised as though to strike. Rather
            fortunately, I now think, I was too petrified to say a word. The children never moved but
            Tubbage, the Alsatian, got up and jumped out of the window!

            Then the native turned away and still with the same fixed stare and grimace,
            began to attack the furniture with his umbrella. Tables and chairs were overturned and
            books and ornaments scattered on the floor. When the madman had his back turned and
            was busily bashing the couch, I slipped round the dining room table, took Ann and
            Georgie by the hand and fled through the front door to the garage where I hid the
            children in the car. All this took several minutes because naturally the children were
            terrified. I was worried to death about the baby left alone in the bedroom and as soon
            as I had Ann and Georgie settled I ran back to the house.

            I reached the now open front door just as Kianda the houseboy opened the back
            door of the lounge. He had been away at the river washing clothes but, on hearing of the
            madman from the kitchen boy he had armed himself with a stout stick and very pluckily,
            because he is not a robust boy, had returned to the house to eject the intruder. He
            rushed to attack immediately and I heard a terrific exchange of blows behind me as I
            opened our bedroom door. You can imagine what my feelings were when I was
            confronted by an empty cot! Just then there was an uproar inside as all the farm
            labourers armed with hoes and pangas and sticks, streamed into the living room from the
            shamba whence they had been summoned by the cook. In no time at all the huge
            native was hustled out of the house, flung down the front steps, and securely tied up
            with strips of cloth.

            In the lull that followed I heard a frightened voice calling from the bathroom.
            ”Memsahib is that you? The child is here with me.” I hastily opened the bathroom door
            to find Mary couched in a corner by the bath, shielding Kate with her body. Mary had
            seen the big native enter the house and her first thought had been for her charge. I
            thanked her and promised her a reward for her loyalty, and quickly returned to the garage
            to reassure Ann and Georgie. I met George who looked white and exhausted as well
            he might having run up hill all the way from the coffee store. The kitchen boy had led him
            to expect the worst and he was most relieved to find us all unhurt if a bit shaken.
            We returned to the house by the back way whilst George went to the front and
            ordered our labourers to take their prisoner and lock him up in the store. George then
            discussed the whole affair with his Headman and all the labourers after which he reported
            to me. “The boys say that the bastard is an ex-Askari from Nyasaland. He is not mad as
            you thought but he smokes bhang and has these attacks. I suppose I should take him to
            Mbeya and have him up in court. But if I do that you’ll have to give evidence and that will be a nuisance as the car won’t go and there is also the baby to consider.”

            Eventually we decided to leave the man to sleep off the effects of the Bhang
            until evening when he would be tried before an impromptu court consisting of George,
            the local Jumbe(Headman) and village Elders, and our own farm boys and any other
            interested spectators. It was not long before I knew the verdict because I heard the
            sound of lashes. I was not sorry at all because I felt the man deserved his punishment
            and so did all the Africans. They love children and despise anyone who harms or
            frightens them. With great enthusiasm they frog-marched him off our land, and I sincerely
            hope that that is the last we see or him. Ann and Georgie don’t seem to brood over this
            affair at all. The man was naughty and he was spanked, a quite reasonable state of
            affairs. This morning they hid away in the small thatched chicken house. This is a little brick
            building about four feet square which Ann covets as a dolls house. They came back
            covered in stick fleas which I had to remove with paraffin. My hens are laying well but
            they all have the ‘gapes’! I wouldn’t run a chicken farm for anything, hens are such fussy,
            squawking things.

            Now don’t go worrying about my experience with the native. Such things
            happen only once in a lifetime. We are all very well and happy, and life, apart from the
            children’s pranks is very tranquil.

            Lots and lots of love,
            Eleanor.

            Mchewe Estate. 25th October 1935

            Dearest Family,

            The hot winds have dried up the shamba alarmingly and we hope every day for
            rain. The prices for coffee, on the London market, continue to be low and the local
            planters are very depressed. Coffee grows well enough here but we are over 400
            miles from the railway and transport to the railhead by lorry is very expensive. Then, as
            there is no East African Marketing Board, the coffee must be shipped to England for
            sale. Unless the coffee fetches at least 90 pounds a ton it simply doesn’t pay to grow it.
            When we started planting in 1931 coffee was fetching as much as 115 pounds a ton but
            prices this year were between 45 and 55 pounds. We have practically exhausted our
            capitol and so have all our neighbours. The Hickson -Woods have been keeping their
            pot boiling by selling bat guano to the coffee farmers at Mbosi but now everyone is
            broke and there is not a market for fertilisers. They are offering their farm for sale at a very
            low price.

            Major Jones has got a job working on the district roads and Max Coster talks of
            returning to his work as a geologist. George says he will have to go gold digging on the
            Lupa unless there is a big improvement in the market. Luckily we can live quite cheaply
            here. We have a good vegetable garden, milk is cheap and we have plenty of fruit.
            There are mulberries, pawpaws, grenadillas, peaches, and wine berries. The wine
            berries are very pretty but insipid though Ann and Georgie love them. Each morning,
            before breakfast, the old garden boy brings berries for Ann and Georgie. With a thorn
            the old man pins a large leaf from a wild fig tree into a cone which he fills with scarlet wine
            berries. There is always a cone for each child and they wait eagerly outside for the daily
            ceremony of presentation.

            The rats are being a nuisance again. Both our cats, Skinny Winnie and Blackboy
            disappeared a few weeks ago. We think they made a meal for a leopard. I wrote last
            week to our grocer at Mbalizi asking him whether he could let us have a couple of kittens
            as I have often seen cats in his store. The messenger returned with a nailed down box.
            The kitchen boy was called to prize up the lid and the children stood by in eager
            anticipation. Out jumped two snarling and spitting creatures. One rushed into the kalonga
            and the other into the house and before they were captured they had drawn blood from
            several boys. I told the boys to replace the cats in the box as I intended to return them
            forthwith. They had the colouring, stripes and dispositions of wild cats and I certainly
            didn’t want them as pets, but before the boys could replace the lid the cats escaped
            once more into the undergrowth in the kalonga. George fetched his shotgun and said he
            would shoot the cats on sight or they would kill our chickens. This was more easily said
            than done because the cats could not be found. However during the night the cats
            climbed up into the loft af the house and we could hear them moving around on the reed
            ceiling.

            I said to George,”Oh leave the poor things. At least they might frighten the rats
            away.” That afternoon as we were having tea a thin stream of liquid filtered through the
            ceiling on George’s head. Oh dear!!! That of course was the end. Some raw meat was
            put on the lawn for bait and yesterday George shot both cats.

            I regret to end with the sad story of Mary, heroine in my last letter and outcast in
            this. She came to work quite drunk two days running and I simply had to get rid of her. I
            have heard since from Kath Wood that Mary lost her last job at Tukuyu for the same
            reason. She was ayah to twin girls and one day set their pram on fire.

            So once again my hands are more than full with three lively children. I did say
            didn’t I, when Ann was born that I wanted six children?

            Very much love from us all, Eleanor.

            Mchewe Estate. 8th November 1935

            Dearest Family,

            To set your minds at rest I must tell you that the native who so frightened me and
            the children is now in jail for attacking a Greek at Mbalizi. I hear he is to be sent back to
            Rhodesia when he has finished his sentence.

            Yesterday we had one of our rare trips to Mbeya. George managed to get a couple of
            second hand tyres for the old car and had again got her to work so we are celebrating our
            wedding anniversary by going on an outing. I wore the green and fawn striped silk dress
            mother bought me and the hat and shoes you sent for my birthday and felt like a million
            dollars, for a change. The children all wore new clothes too and I felt very proud of them.
            Ann is still very fair and with her refined little features and straight silky hair she
            looks like Alice in Wonderland. Georgie is dark and sturdy and looks best in khaki shirt
            and shorts and sun helmet. Kate is a pink and gold baby and looks good enough to eat.
            We went straight to the hotel at Mbeya and had the usual warm welcome from
            Ken and Aunty May Menzies. Aunty May wears her hair cut short like a mans and
            usually wears shirt and tie and riding breeches and boots. She always looks ready to go
            on safari at a moments notice as indeed she is. She is often called out to a case of illness
            at some remote spot.

            There were lots of people at the hotel from farms in the district and from the
            diggings. I met women I had not seen for four years. One, a Mrs Masters from Tukuyu,
            said in the lounge, “My God! Last time I saw you , you were just a girl and here you are
            now with two children.” To which I replied with pride, “There is another one in a pram on
            the verandah if you care to look!” Great hilarity in the lounge. The people from the
            diggings seem to have plenty of money to throw around. There was a big party on the
            go in the bar.

            One of our shamba boys died last Friday and all his fellow workers and our
            house boys had the day off to attend the funeral. From what I can gather the local
            funerals are quite cheery affairs. The corpse is dressed in his best clothes and laid
            outside his hut and all who are interested may view the body and pay their respects.
            The heir then calls upon anyone who had a grudge against the dead man to say his say
            and thereafter hold his tongue forever. Then all the friends pay tribute to the dead man
            after which he is buried to the accompaniment of what sounds from a distance, very
            cheerful keening.

            Most of our workmen are pagans though there is a Lutheran Mission nearby and
            a big Roman Catholic Mission in the area too. My present cook, however, claims to be
            a Christian. He certainly went to a mission school and can read and write and also sing
            hymns in Ki-Swahili. When I first engaged him I used to find a large open Bible
            prominently displayed on the kitchen table. The cook is middle aged and arrived here
            with a sensible matronly wife. To my surprise one day he brought along a young girl,
            very plump and giggly and announced proudly that she was his new wife, I said,”But I
            thought you were a Christian Jeremiah? Christians don’t have two wives.” To which he
            replied, “Oh Memsahib, God won’t mind. He knows an African needs two wives – one
            to go with him when he goes away to work and one to stay behind at home to cultivate
            the shamba.

            Needles to say, it is the old wife who has gone to till the family plot.

            With love to all,
            Eleanor.

            Mchewe Estate. 21st November 1935

            Dearest Family,

            The drought has broken with a bang. We had a heavy storm in the hills behind
            the house. Hail fell thick and fast. So nice for all the tiny new berries on the coffee! The
            kids loved the excitement and three times Ann and Georgie ran out for a shower under
            the eaves and had to be changed. After the third time I was fed up and made them both
            lie on their beds whilst George and I had lunch in peace. I told Ann to keep the
            casement shut as otherwise the rain would drive in on her bed. Half way through lunch I
            heard delighted squeals from Georgie and went into the bedroom to investigate. Ann
            was standing on the outer sill in the rain but had shut the window as ordered. “Well
            Mummy , you didn’t say I mustn’t stand on the window sill, and I did shut the window.”
            George is working so hard on the farm. I have a horrible feeling however that it is
            what the Africans call ‘Kazi buri’ (waste of effort) as there seems no chance of the price of
            coffee improving as long as this world depression continues. The worry is that our capitol
            is nearly exhausted. Food is becoming difficult now that our neighbours have left. I used
            to buy delicious butter from Kath Hickson-Wood and an African butcher used to kill a
            beast once a week. Now that we are his only European customers he very rarely kills
            anything larger than a goat, and though we do eat goat, believe me it is not from choice.
            We have of course got plenty to eat, but our diet is very monotonous. I was
            delighted when George shot a large bushbuck last week. What we could not use I cut
            into strips and the salted strips are now hanging in the open garage to dry.

            With love to all,
            Eleanor.

            Mchewe Estate. 6th December 1935

            Dearest Family,

            We have had a lot of rain and the countryside is lovely and green. Last week
            George went to Mbeya taking Ann with him. This was a big adventure for Ann because
            never before had she been anywhere without me. She was in a most blissful state as
            she drove off in the old car clutching a little basket containing sandwiches and half a bottle
            of milk. She looked so pretty in a new blue frock and with her tiny plaits tied with
            matching blue ribbons. When Ann is animated she looks charming because her normally
            pale cheeks become rosy and she shows her pretty dimples.

            As I am still without an ayah I rather looked forward to a quiet morning with only
            Georgie and Margery Kate to care for, but Georgie found it dull without Ann and wanted
            to be entertained and even the normally placid baby was peevish. Then in mid morning
            the rain came down in torrents, the result of a cloudburst in the hills directly behind our
            house. The ravine next to our house was a terrifying sight. It appeared to be a great
            muddy, roaring waterfall reaching from the very top of the hill to a point about 30 yards
            behind our house and then the stream rushed on down the gorge in an angry brown
            flood. The roar of the water was so great that we had to yell at one another to be heard.
            By lunch time the rain had stopped and I anxiously awaited the return of Ann and
            George. They returned on foot, drenched and hungry at about 2.30pm . George had
            had to abandon the car on the main road as the Mchewe River had overflowed and
            turned the road into a muddy lake. The lower part of the shamba had also been flooded
            and the water receded leaving branches and driftwood amongst the coffee. This was my
            first experience of a real tropical storm. I am afraid that after the battering the coffee has
            had there is little hope of a decent crop next year.

            Anyway Christmas is coming so we don’t dwell on these mishaps. The children
            have already chosen their tree from amongst the young cypresses in the vegetable
            garden. We all send our love and hope that you too will have a Happy Christmas.

            Eleanor

            Mchewe Estate. 22nd December 1935

            Dearest Family,

            I’ve been in the wars with my staff. The cook has been away ill for ten days but is
            back today though shaky and full of self pity. The houseboy, who really has been a brick
            during the cooks absence has now taken to his bed and I feel like taking to Mine! The
            children however have the Christmas spirit and are making weird and wonderful paper
            decorations. George’s contribution was to have the house whitewashed throughout and
            it looks beautifully fresh.

            My best bit of news is that my old ayah Janey has been to see me and would
            like to start working here again on Jan 1st. We are all very well. We meant to give
            ourselves an outing to Mbeya as a Christmas treat but here there is an outbreak of
            enteric fever there so will now not go. We have had two visitors from the Diggings this
            week. The children see so few strangers that they were fascinated and hung around
            staring. Ann sat down on the arm of the couch beside one and studied his profile.
            Suddenly she announced in her clear voice, “Mummy do you know, this man has got
            wax in his ears!” Very awkward pause in the conversation. By the way when I was
            cleaning out little Kate’s ears with a swab of cotton wool a few days ago, Ann asked
            “Mummy, do bees have wax in their ears? Well, where do you get beeswax from
            then?”

            I meant to keep your Christmas parcel unopened until Christmas Eve but could
            not resist peeping today. What lovely things! Ann so loves pretties and will be
            delighted with her frocks. My dress is just right and I love Georgie’s manly little flannel
            shorts and blue shirt. We have bought them each a watering can. I suppose I shall
            regret this later. One of your most welcome gifts is the album of nursery rhyme records. I
            am so fed up with those that we have. Both children love singing. I put a record on the
            gramophone geared to slow and off they go . Georgie sings more slowly than Ann but
            much more tunefully. Ann sings in a flat monotone but Georgie with great expression.
            You ought to hear him render ‘Sing a song of sixpence’. He cannot pronounce an R or
            an S. Mother has sent a large home made Christmas pudding and a fine Christmas
            cake and George will shoot some partridges for Christmas dinner.
            Think of us as I shall certainly think of you.

            Your very loving,
            Eleanor.

            Mchewe Estate. 2nd January 1936

            Dearest Family,

            Christmas was fun! The tree looked very gay with its load of tinsel, candles and
            red crackers and the coloured balloons you sent. All the children got plenty of toys
            thanks to Grandparents and Aunts. George made Ann a large doll’s bed and I made
            some elegant bedding, Barbara, the big doll is now permanently bed ridden. Her poor
            shattered head has come all unstuck and though I have pieced it together again it is a sad
            sight. If you have not yet chosen a present for her birthday next month would you
            please get a new head from the Handy House. I enclose measurements. Ann does so
            love the doll. She always calls her, “My little girl”, and she keeps the doll’s bed beside
            her own and never fails to kiss her goodnight.

            We had no guests for Christmas this year but we were quite festive. Ann
            decorated the dinner table with small pink roses and forget-me-knots and tinsel and the
            crackers from the tree. It was a wet day but we played the new records and both
            George and I worked hard to make it a really happy day for the children. The children
            were hugely delighted when George made himself a revolting set of false teeth out of
            plasticine and a moustache and beard of paper straw from a chocolate box. “Oh Daddy
            you look exactly like Father Christmas!” cried an enthralled Ann. Before bedtime we lit
            all the candles on the tree and sang ‘Away in a Manger’, and then we opened the box of
            starlights you sent and Ann and Georgie had their first experience of fireworks.
            After the children went to bed things deteriorated. First George went for his bath
            and found and killed a large black snake in the bathroom. It must have been in the
            bathroom when I bathed the children earlier in the evening. Then I developed bad
            toothache which kept me awake all night and was agonising next day. Unfortunately the
            bridge between the farm and Mbeya had been washed away and the water was too
            deep for the car to ford until the 30th when at last I was able to take my poor swollen
            face to Mbeya. There is now a young German woman dentist working at the hospital.
            She pulled out the offending molar which had a large abscess attached to it.
            Whilst the dentist attended to me, Ann and Georgie played happily with the
            doctor’s children. I wish they could play more often with other children. Dr Eckhardt was
            very pleased with Margery Kate who at seven months weighs 17 lbs and has lovely
            rosy cheeks. He admired Ann and told her that she looked just like a German girl. “No I
            don’t”, cried Ann indignantly, “I’m English!”

            We were caught in a rain storm going home and as the old car still has no
            windscreen or side curtains we all got soaked except for the baby who was snugly
            wrapped in my raincoat. The kids thought it great fun. Ann is growing up fast now. She
            likes to ‘help mummy’. She is a perfectionist at four years old which is rather trying. She
            gets so discouraged when things do not turn out as well as she means them to. Sewing
            is constantly being unpicked and paintings torn up. She is a very sensitive child.
            Georgie is quite different. He is a man of action, but not silent. He talks incessantly
            but lisps and stumbles over some words. At one time Ann and Georgie often
            conversed in Ki-Swahili but they now scorn to do so. If either forgets and uses a Swahili
            word, the other points a scornful finger and shouts “You black toto”.

            With love to all,
            Eleanor.

            #6260
            TracyTracy
            Participant

              From Tanganyika with Love

              With thanks to Mike Rushby.

              • “The letters of Eleanor Dunbar Leslie to her parents and her sister in South Africa
                concerning her life with George Gilman Rushby of Tanganyika, and the trials and
                joys of bringing up a family in pioneering conditions.

              These letters were transcribed from copies of letters typed by Eleanor Rushby from
              the originals which were in the estate of Marjorie Leslie, Eleanor’s sister. Eleanor
              kept no diary of her life in Tanganyika, so these letters were the living record of an
              important part of her life.

              Prelude
              Having walked across Africa from the East coast to Ubangi Shauri Chad
              in French Equatorial Africa, hunting elephant all the way, George Rushby
              made his way down the Congo to Leopoldville. He then caught a ship to
              Europe and had a holiday in Brussels and Paris before visiting his family
              in England. He developed blackwater fever and was extremely ill for a
              while. When he recovered he went to London to arrange his return to
              Africa.

              Whilst staying at the Overseas Club he met Eileen Graham who had come
              to England from Cape Town to study music. On hearing that George was
              sailing for Cape Town she arranged to introduce him to her friend
              Eleanor Dunbar Leslie. “You’ll need someone lively to show you around,”
              she said. “She’s as smart as paint, a keen mountaineer, a very good school
              teacher, and she’s attractive. You can’t miss her, because her father is a
              well known Cape Town Magistrate. And,” she added “I’ve already written
              and told her what ship you are arriving on.”

              Eleanor duly met the ship. She and George immediately fell in love.
              Within thirty six hours he had proposed marriage and was accepted
              despite the misgivings of her parents. As she was under contract to her
              High School, she remained in South Africa for several months whilst
              George headed for Tanganyika looking for a farm where he could build
              their home.

              These details are a summary of chapter thirteen of the Biography of
              George Gilman Rushby ‘The Hunter is Death “ by T.V.Bulpin.

               

              Dearest Marj,
              Terrifically exciting news! I’ve just become engaged to an Englishman whom I
              met last Monday. The result is a family upheaval which you will have no difficulty in
              imagining!!

              The Aunts think it all highly romantic and cry in delight “Now isn’t that just like our
              El!” Mummy says she doesn’t know what to think, that anyway I was always a harum
              scarum and she rather expected something like this to happen. However I know that
              she thinks George highly attractive. “Such a nice smile and gentle manner, and such
              good hands“ she murmurs appreciatively. “But WHY AN ELEPHANT HUNTER?” she
              ends in a wail, as though elephant hunting was an unmentionable profession.
              Anyway I don’t think so. Anyone can marry a bank clerk or a lawyer or even a
              millionaire – but whoever heard of anyone marrying anyone as exciting as an elephant
              hunter? I’m thrilled to bits.

              Daddy also takes a dim view of George’s profession, and of George himself as
              a husband for me. He says that I am so impulsive and have such wild enthusiasms that I
              need someone conservative and steady to give me some serenity and some ballast.
              Dad says George is a handsome fellow and a good enough chap he is sure, but
              he is obviously a man of the world and hints darkly at a possible PAST. George says
              he has nothing of the kind and anyway I’m the first girl he has asked to marry him. I don’t
              care anyway, I’d gladly marry him tomorrow, but Dad has other ideas.

              He sat in his armchair to deliver his verdict, wearing the same look he must wear
              on the bench. If we marry, and he doesn’t think it would be a good thing, George must
              buy a comfortable house for me in Central Africa where I can stay safely when he goes
              hunting. I interrupted to say “But I’m going too”, but dad snubbed me saying that in no
              time at all I’ll have a family and one can’t go dragging babies around in the African Bush.”
              George takes his lectures with surprising calm. He says he can see Dad’s point of
              view much better than I can. He told the parents today that he plans to buy a small
              coffee farm in the Southern Highlands of Tanganyika and will build a cosy cottage which
              will be a proper home for both of us, and that he will only hunt occasionally to keep the
              pot boiling.

              Mummy, of course, just had to spill the beans. She said to George, “I suppose
              you know that Eleanor knows very little about house keeping and can’t cook at all.” a fact
              that I was keeping a dark secret. But George just said, “Oh she won’t have to work. The
              boys do all that sort of thing. She can lie on a couch all day and read if she likes.” Well
              you always did say that I was a “Lily of the field,” and what a good thing! If I were one of
              those terribly capable women I’d probably die of frustration because it seems that
              African house boys feel that they have lost face if their Memsahibs do anything but the
              most gracious chores.

              George is absolutely marvellous. He is strong and gentle and awfully good
              looking too. He is about 5 ft 10 ins tall and very broad. He wears his curly brown hair cut
              very short and has a close clipped moustache. He has strongly marked eyebrows and
              very striking blue eyes which sometimes turn grey or green. His teeth are strong and
              even and he has a quiet voice.

              I expect all this sounds too good to be true, but come home quickly and see for
              yourself. George is off to East Africa in three weeks time to buy our farm. I shall follow as
              soon as he has bought it and we will be married in Dar es Salaam.

              Dad has taken George for a walk “to get to know him” and that’s why I have time
              to write such a long screed. They should be back any minute now and I must fly and
              apply a bit of glamour.

              Much love my dear,
              your jubilant
              Eleanor

              S.S.Timavo. Durban. 28th.October. 1930.

              Dearest Family,
              Thank you for the lovely send off. I do wish you were all on board with me and
              could come and dance with me at my wedding. We are having a very comfortable
              voyage. There were only four of the passengers as far as Durban, all of them women,
              but I believe we are taking on more here. I have a most comfortable deck cabin to
              myself and the use of a sumptuous bathroom. No one is interested in deck games and I
              am having a lazy time, just sunbathing and reading.

              I sit at the Captain’s table and the meals are delicious – beautifully served. The
              butter for instance, is moulded into sprays of roses, most exquisitely done, and as for
              the ice-cream, I’ve never tasted anything like them.

              The meals are continental type and we have hors d’oeuvre in a great variety
              served on large round trays. The Italians souse theirs with oil, Ugh! We also of course
              get lots of spaghetti which I have some difficulty in eating. However this presents no
              problem to the Chief Engineer who sits opposite to me. He simply rolls it around his
              fork and somehow the spaghetti flows effortlessly from fork to mouth exactly like an
              ascending escalator. Wine is served at lunch and dinner – very mild and pleasant stuff.
              Of the women passengers the one i liked best was a young German widow
              from South west Africa who left the ship at East London to marry a man she had never
              met. She told me he owned a drapers shop and she was very happy at the prospect
              of starting a new life, as her previous marriage had ended tragically with the death of her
              husband and only child in an accident.

              I was most interested to see the bridegroom and stood at the rail beside the gay
              young widow when we docked at East London. I picked him out, without any difficulty,
              from the small group on the quay. He was a tall thin man in a smart grey suit and with a
              grey hat perched primly on his head. You can always tell from hats can’t you? I wasn’t
              surprised to see, when this German raised his head, that he looked just like the Kaiser’s
              “Little Willie”. Long thin nose and cold grey eyes and no smile of welcome on his tight
              mouth for the cheery little body beside me. I quite expected him to jerk his thumb and
              stalk off, expecting her to trot at his heel.

              However she went off blithely enough. Next day before the ship sailed, she
              was back and I saw her talking to the Captain. She began to cry and soon after the
              Captain patted her on the shoulder and escorted her to the gangway. Later the Captain
              told me that the girl had come to ask him to allow her to work her passage back to
              Germany where she had some relations. She had married the man the day before but
              she disliked him because he had deceived her by pretending that he owned a shop
              whereas he was only a window dresser. Bad show for both.

              The Captain and the Chief Engineer are the only officers who mix socially with
              the passengers. The captain seems rather a melancholy type with, I should say, no
              sense of humour. He speaks fair English with an American accent. He tells me that he
              was on the San Francisco run during Prohibition years in America and saw many Film
              Stars chiefly “under the influence” as they used to flock on board to drink. The Chief
              Engineer is big and fat and cheerful. His English is anything but fluent but he makes up
              for it in mime.

              I visited the relations and friends at Port Elizabeth and East London, and here at
              Durban. I stayed with the Trotters and Swans and enjoyed myself very much at both
              places. I have collected numerous wedding presents, china and cutlery, coffee
              percolator and ornaments, and where I shall pack all these things I don’t know. Everyone has been terribly kind and I feel extremely well and happy.

              At the start of the voyage I had a bit of bad luck. You will remember that a
              perfectly foul South Easter was blowing. Some men were busy working on a deck
              engine and I stopped to watch and a tiny fragment of steel blew into my eye. There is
              no doctor on board so the stewardess put some oil into the eye and bandaged it up.
              The eye grew more and more painful and inflamed and when when we reached Port
              Elizabeth the Captain asked the Port Doctor to look at it. The Doctor said it was a job for
              an eye specialist and telephoned from the ship to make an appointment. Luckily for me,
              Vincent Tofts turned up at the ship just then and took me off to the specialist and waited
              whilst he extracted the fragment with a giant magnet. The specialist said that I was very
              lucky as the thing just missed the pupil of my eye so my sight will not be affected. I was
              temporarily blinded by the Belladona the eye-man put in my eye so he fitted me with a
              pair of black goggles and Vincent escorted me back to the ship. Don’t worry the eye is
              now as good as ever and George will not have to take a one-eyed bride for better or
              worse.

              I have one worry and that is that the ship is going to be very much overdue by
              the time we reach Dar es Salaam. She is taking on a big wool cargo and we were held
              up for three days in East london and have been here in Durban for five days.
              Today is the ninth Anniversary of the Fascist Movement and the ship was
              dressed with bunting and flags. I must now go and dress for the gala dinner.

              Bless you all,
              Eleanor.

              S.S.Timavo. 6th. November 1930

              Dearest Family,

              Nearly there now. We called in at Lourenco Marques, Beira, Mozambique and
              Port Amelia. I was the only one of the original passengers left after Durban but there we
              took on a Mrs Croxford and her mother and two men passengers. Mrs C must have
              something, certainly not looks. She has a flat figure, heavily mascared eyes and crooked
              mouth thickly coated with lipstick. But her rather sweet old mother-black-pearls-type tells
              me they are worn out travelling around the world trying to shake off an admirer who
              pursues Mrs C everywhere.

              The one male passenger is very quiet and pleasant. The old lady tells me that he
              has recently lost his wife. The other passenger is a horribly bumptious type.
              I had my hair beautifully shingled at Lourenco Marques, but what an experience it
              was. Before we docked I asked the Captain whether he knew of a hairdresser, but he
              said he did not and would have to ask the agent when he came aboard. The agent was
              a very suave Asian. He said “Sure he did” and offered to take me in his car. I rather
              doubtfully agreed — such a swarthy gentleman — and was driven, not to a hairdressing
              establishment, but to his office. Then he spoke to someone on the telephone and in no
              time at all a most dago-y type arrived carrying a little black bag. He was all patent
              leather, hair, and flashing smile, and greeted me like an old and valued friend.
              Before I had collected my scattered wits tthe Agent had flung open a door and
              ushered me through, and I found myself seated before an ornate mirror in what was only
              too obviously a bedroom. It was a bedroom with a difference though. The unmade bed
              had no legs but hung from the ceiling on brass chains.

              The agent beamingly shut the door behind him and I was left with my imagination
              and the afore mentioned oily hairdresser. He however was very business like. Before I
              could say knife he had shingled my hair with a cut throat razor and then, before I could
              protest, had smothered my neck in stinking pink powder applied with an enormous and
              filthy swansdown powder puff. He held up a mirror for me to admire his handiwork but I
              was aware only of the enormous bed reflected in it, and hurriedly murmuring “very nice,
              very nice” I made my escape to the outer office where, to my relief, I found the Chief
              Engineer who escorted me back to the ship.

              In the afternoon Mrs Coxford and the old lady and I hired a taxi and went to the
              Polana Hotel for tea. Very swish but I like our Cape Peninsula beaches better.
              At Lorenco Marques we took on more passengers. The Governor of
              Portuguese Nyasaland and his wife and baby son. He was a large middle aged man,
              very friendly and unassuming and spoke perfect English. His wife was German and
              exquisite, as fragile looking and with the delicate colouring of a Dresden figurine. She
              looked about 18 but she told me she was 28 and showed me photographs of two
              other sons – hefty youngsters, whom she had left behind in Portugal and was missing
              very much.

              It was frightfully hot at Beira and as I had no money left I did not go up to the
              town, but Mrs Croxford and I spent a pleasant hour on the beach under the Casurina
              trees.

              The Governor and his wife left the ship at Mozambique. He looked very
              imposing in his starched uniform and she more Dresden Sheperdish than ever in a
              flowered frock. There was a guard of honour and all the trimmings. They bade me a warm farewell and invited George and me to stay at any time.

              The German ship “Watussi” was anchored in the Bay and I decided to visit her
              and try and have my hair washed and set. I had no sooner stepped on board when a
              lady came up to me and said “Surely you are Beeba Leslie.” It was Mrs Egan and she
              had Molly with her. Considering Mrs Egan had not seen me since I was five I think it was
              jolly clever of her to recognise me. Molly is charming and was most friendly. She fixed
              things with the hairdresser and sat with me until the job was done. Afterwards I had tea
              with them.

              Port Amelia was our last stop. In fact the only person to go ashore was Mr
              Taylor, the unpleasant man, and he returned at sunset very drunk indeed.
              We reached Port Amelia on the 3rd – my birthday. The boat had anchored by
              the time I was dressed and when I went on deck I saw several row boats cluttered
              around the gangway and in them were natives with cages of wild birds for sale. Such tiny
              crowded cages. I was furious, you know me. I bought three cages, carried them out on
              to the open deck and released the birds. I expected them to fly to the land but they flew
              straight up into the rigging.

              The quiet male passenger wandered up and asked me what I was doing. I said
              “I’m giving myself a birthday treat, I hate to see caged birds.” So next thing there he
              was buying birds which he presented to me with “Happy Birthday.” I gladly set those
              birds free too and they joined the others in the rigging.

              Then a grinning steward came up with three more cages. “For the lady with
              compliments of the Captain.” They lost no time in joining their friends.
              It had given me so much pleasure to free the birds that I was only a little
              discouraged when the quiet man said thoughtfully “This should encourage those bird
              catchers you know, they are sold out. When evening came and we were due to sail I
              was sure those birds would fly home, but no, they are still there and they will probably
              remain until we dock at Dar es Salaam.

              During the morning the Captain came up and asked me what my Christian name
              is. He looked as grave as ever and I couldn’t think why it should interest him but said “the
              name is Eleanor.” That night at dinner there was a large iced cake in the centre of the
              table with “HELENA” in a delicate wreath of pink icing roses on the top. We had
              champagne and everyone congratulated me and wished me good luck in my marriage.
              A very nice gesture don’t you think. The unpleasant character had not put in an
              appearance at dinner which made the party all the nicer

              I sat up rather late in the lounge reading a book and by the time I went to bed
              there was not a soul around. I bathed and changed into my nighty,walked into my cabin,
              shed my dressing gown, and pottered around. When I was ready for bed I put out my
              hand to draw the curtains back and a hand grasped my wrist. It was that wretched
              creature outside my window on the deck, still very drunk. Luckily I was wearing that
              heavy lilac silk nighty. I was livid. “Let go at once”, I said, but he only grinned stupidly.
              “I’m not hurting you” he said, “only looking”. “I’ll ring for the steward” said I, and by
              stretching I managed to press the bell with my free hand. I rang and rang but no one
              came and he just giggled. Then I said furiously, “Remember this name, George
              Rushby, he is a fine boxer and he hates specimens like you. When he meets me at Dar
              es Salaam I shall tell him about this and I bet you will be sorry.” However he still held on
              so I turned and knocked hard on the adjoining wall which divided my cabin from Mrs
              Croxfords. Soon Mrs Croxford and the old lady appeared in dressing gowns . This
              seemed to amuse the drunk even more though he let go my wrist. So whilst the old
              lady stayed with me, Mrs C fetched the quiet passenger who soon hustled him off. He has kept out of my way ever since. However I still mean to tell George because I feel
              the fellow got off far too lightly. I reported the matter to the Captain but he just remarked
              that he always knew the man was low class because he never wears a jacket to meals.
              This is my last night on board and we again had free champagne and I was given
              some tooled leather work by the Captain and a pair of good paste earrings by the old
              lady. I have invited them and Mrs Croxford, the Chief Engineer, and the quiet
              passenger to the wedding.

              This may be my last night as Eleanor Leslie and I have spent this long while
              writing to you just as a little token of my affection and gratitude for all the years of your
              love and care. I shall post this letter on the ship and must turn now and get some beauty
              sleep. We have been told that we shall be in Dar es Salaam by 9 am. I am so excited
              that I shall not sleep.

              Very much love, and just for fun I’ll sign my full name for the last time.
              with my “bes respeks”,

              Eleanor Leslie.

              Eleanor and George Rushby:

              Eleanor and George Rushby

              Splendid Hotel, Dar es Salaam 11th November 1930

              Dearest Family,

              I’m writing this in the bedroom whilst George is out buying a tin trunk in which to
              pack all our wedding presents. I expect he will be gone a long time because he has
              gone out with Hicky Wood and, though our wedding was four days ago, it’s still an
              excuse for a party. People are all very cheery and friendly here.
              I am wearing only pants and slip but am still hot. One swelters here in the
              mornings, but a fresh sea breeze blows in the late afternoons and then Dar es Salaam is
              heavenly.

              We arrived in Dar es Salaam harbour very early on Friday morning (7 th Nov).
              The previous night the Captain had said we might not reach Dar. until 9 am, and certainly
              no one would be allowed on board before 8 am. So I dawdled on the deck in my
              dressing gown and watched the green coastline and the islands slipping by. I stood on
              the deck outside my cabin and was not aware that I was looking out at the wrong side of
              the landlocked harbour. Quite unknown to me George and some friends, the Hickson
              Woods, were standing on the Gymkhana Beach on the opposite side of the channel
              anxiously scanning the ship for a sign of me. George says he had a horrible idea I had
              missed the ship. Blissfully unconscious of his anxiety I wandered into the bathroom
              prepared for a good soak. The anchor went down when I was in the bath and suddenly
              there was a sharp wrap on the door and I heard Mrs Croxford say “There’s a man in a
              boat outside. He is looking out for someone and I’m sure it’s your George. I flung on
              some clothes and rushed on deck with tousled hair and bare feet and it was George.
              We had a marvellous reunion. George was wearing shorts and bush shirt and
              looked just like the strong silent types one reads about in novels. I finished dressing then
              George helped me bundle all the wedding presents I had collected en route into my
              travelling rug and we went into the bar lounge to join the Hickson Woods. They are the
              couple from whom George bought the land which is to be our coffee farm Hicky-Wood
              was laughing when we joined them. he said he had called a chap to bring a couple of
              beers thinking he was the steward but it turned out to be the Captain. He does wear
              such a very plain uniform that I suppose it was easy to make the mistake, but Hicky
              says he was not amused.

              Anyway as the H-W’s are to be our neighbours I’d better describe them. Kath
              Wood is very attractive, dark Irish, with curly black hair and big brown eyes. She was
              married before to Viv Lumb a great friend of George’s who died some years ago of
              blackwater fever. They had one little girl, Maureen, and Kath and Hicky have a small son
              of three called Michael. Hicky is slightly below average height and very neat and dapper
              though well built. He is a great one for a party and good fun but George says he can be
              bad tempered.

              Anyway we all filed off the ship and Hicky and Cath went on to the hotel whilst
              George and I went through customs. Passing the customs was easy. Everyone
              seemed to know George and that it was his wedding day and I just sailed through,
              except for the little matter of the rug coming undone when George and I had to scramble
              on the floor for candlesticks and fruit knives and a wooden nut bowl.
              Outside the customs shed we were mobbed by a crowd of jabbering Africans
              offering their services as porters, and soon my luggage was piled in one rickshaw whilst
              George and I climbed into another and we were born smoothly away on rubber shod
              wheels to the Splendid Hotel. The motion was pleasing enough but it seemed weird to
              be pulled along by one human being whilst another pushed behind.  We turned up a street called Acacia Avenue which, as its name implies, is lined
              with flamboyant acacia trees now in the full glory of scarlet and gold. The rickshaw
              stopped before the Splendid Hotel and I was taken upstairs into a pleasant room which
              had its own private balcony overlooking the busy street.

              Here George broke the news that we were to be married in less than an hours
              time. He would have to dash off and change and then go straight to the church. I would
              be quite all right, Kath would be looking in and friends would fetch me.
              I started to dress and soon there was a tap at the door and Mrs Hickson-Wood
              came in with my bouquet. It was a lovely bunch of carnations and frangipani with lots of
              asparagus fern and it went well with my primrose yellow frock. She admired my frock
              and Leghorn hat and told me that her little girl Maureen was to be my flower girl. Then
              she too left for the church.

              I was fully dressed when there was another knock on the door and I opened it to
              be confronted by a Police Officer in a starched white uniform. I’m McCallum”, he said,
              “I’ve come to drive you to the church.” Downstairs he introduced me to a big man in a
              tussore silk suit. “This is Dr Shicore”, said McCallum, “He is going to give you away.”
              Honestly, I felt exactly like Alice in Wonderland. Wouldn’t have been at all surprised if
              the White Rabbit had popped up and said he was going to be my page.

              I walked out of the hotel and across the pavement in a dream and there, by the
              curb, was a big dark blue police car decorated with white ribbons and with a tall African
              Police Ascari holding the door open for me. I had hardly time to wonder what next when
              the car drew up before a tall German looking church. It was in fact the Lutheran Church in
              the days when Tanganyika was German East Africa.

              Mrs Hickson-Wood, very smart in mushroom coloured georgette and lace, and
              her small daughter were waiting in the porch, so in we went. I was glad to notice my
              friends from the boat sitting behind George’s friends who were all complete strangers to
              me. The aisle seemed very long but at last I reached George waiting in the chancel with
              Hicky-Wood, looking unfamiliar in a smart tussore suit. However this feeling of unreality
              passed when he turned his head and smiled at me.

              In the vestry after the ceremony I was kissed affectionately by several complete
              strangers and I felt happy and accepted by George’s friends. Outside the church,
              standing apart from the rest of the guests, the Italian Captain and Chief Engineer were
              waiting. They came up and kissed my hand, and murmured felicitations, but regretted
              they could not spare the time to come to the reception. Really it was just as well
              because they would not have fitted in at all well.

              Dr Shircore is the Director of Medical Services and he had very kindly lent his
              large house for the reception. It was quite a party. The guests were mainly men with a
              small sprinkling of wives. Champagne corks popped and there was an enormous cake
              and soon voices were raised in song. The chief one was ‘Happy Days Are Here Again’
              and I shall remember it for ever.

              The party was still in full swing when George and I left. The old lady from the ship
              enjoyed it hugely. She came in an all black outfit with a corsage of artificial Lily-of-the-
              Valley. Later I saw one of the men wearing the corsage in his buttonhole and the old
              lady was wearing a carnation.

              When George and I got back to the hotel,I found that my luggage had been
              moved to George’s room by his cook Lamek, who was squatting on his haunches and
              clapped his hands in greeting. My dears, you should see Lamek – exactly like a
              chimpanzee – receding forehead, wide flat nose, and long lip, and such splayed feet. It was quite a strain not to laugh, especially when he produced a gift for me. I have not yet
              discovered where he acquired it. It was a faded mauve straw toque of the kind worn by
              Queen Mary. I asked George to tell Lamek that I was touched by his generosity but felt
              that I could not accept his gift. He did not mind at all especially as George gave him a
              generous tip there and then.

              I changed into a cotton frock and shady straw hat and George changed into shorts
              and bush shirt once more. We then sneaked into the dining room for lunch avoiding our
              wedding guests who were carrying on the party in the lounge.

              After lunch we rejoined them and they all came down to the jetty to wave goodbye
              as we set out by motor launch for Honeymoon Island. I enjoyed the launch trip very
              much. The sea was calm and very blue and the palm fringed beaches of Dar es Salaam
              are as romantic as any bride could wish. There are small coral islands dotted around the
              Bay of which Honeymoon Island is the loveliest. I believe at one time it bore the less
              romantic name of Quarantine Island. Near the Island, in the shallows, the sea is brilliant
              green and I saw two pink jellyfish drifting by.

              There is no jetty on the island so the boat was stopped in shallow water and
              George carried me ashore. I was enchanted with the Island and in no hurry to go to the
              bungalow, so George and I took our bathing costumes from our suitcases and sent the
              luggage up to the house together with a box of provisions.

              We bathed and lazed on the beach and suddenly it was sunset and it began to
              get dark. We walked up the beach to the bungalow and began to unpack the stores,
              tea, sugar, condensed milk, bread and butter, sardines and a large tin of ham. There
              were also cups and saucers and plates and cutlery.

              We decided to have an early meal and George called out to the caretaker, “Boy
              letta chai”. Thereupon the ‘boy’ materialised and jabbered to George in Ki-Swaheli. It
              appeared he had no utensil in which to boil water. George, ever resourceful, removed
              the ham from the tin and gave him that. We had our tea all right but next day the ham
              was bad.

              Then came bed time. I took a hurricane lamp in one hand and my suitcase in the
              other and wandered into the bedroom whilst George vanished into the bathroom. To
              my astonishment I saw two perfectly bare iron bedsteads – no mattress or pillows. We
              had brought sheets and mosquito nets but, believe me, they are a poor substitute for a
              mattress.

              Anyway I arrayed myself in my pale yellow satin nightie and sat gingerly down
              on the iron edge of the bed to await my groom who eventually appeared in a
              handsome suit of silk pyjamas. His expression, as he took in the situation, was too much
              for me and I burst out laughing and so did he.

              Somewhere in the small hours I woke up. The breeze had dropped and the
              room was unbearably stuffy. I felt as dry as a bone. The lamp had been turned very
              low and had gone out, but I remembered seeing a water tank in the yard and I decided
              to go out in the dark and drink from the tap. In the dark I could not find my slippers so I
              slipped my feet into George’s shoes, picked up his matches and groped my way out
              of the room. I found the tank all right and with one hand on the tap and one cupped for
              water I stooped to drink. Just then I heard a scratchy noise and sensed movements
              around my feet. I struck a match and oh horrors! found that the damp spot on which I was
              standing was alive with white crabs. In my hurry to escape I took a clumsy step, put
              George’s big toe on the hem of my nightie and down I went on top of the crabs. I need
              hardly say that George was awakened by an appalling shriek and came rushing to my
              aid like a knight of old.  Anyway, alarms and excursions not withstanding, we had a wonderful weekend on the island and I was sorry to return to the heat of Dar es Salaam, though the evenings
              here are lovely and it is heavenly driving along the coast road by car or in a rickshaw.
              I was surprised to find so many Indians here. Most of the shops, large and small,
              seem to be owned by Indians and the place teems with them. The women wear
              colourful saris and their hair in long black plaits reaching to their waists. Many wear baggy
              trousers of silk or satin. They give a carnival air to the sea front towards sunset.
              This long letter has been written in instalments throughout the day. My first break
              was when I heard the sound of a band and rushed to the balcony in time to see The
              Kings African Rifles band and Askaris march down the Avenue on their way to an
              Armistice Memorial Service. They looked magnificent.

              I must end on a note of most primitive pride. George returned from his shopping
              expedition and beamingly informed me that he had thrashed the man who annoyed me
              on the ship. I felt extremely delighted and pressed for details. George told me that
              when he went out shopping he noticed to his surprise that the ‘Timavo” was still in the
              harbour. He went across to the Agents office and there saw a man who answered to the
              description I had given. George said to him “Is your name Taylor?”, and when he said
              “yes”, George said “Well my name is George Rushby”, whereupon he hit Taylor on the
              jaw so that he sailed over the counter and down the other side. Very satisfactory, I feel.
              With much love to all.

              Your cave woman
              Eleanor.

              Mchewe Estate. P.O. Mbeya 22 November 1930

              Dearest Family,

              Well here we are at our Country Seat, Mchewe Estate. (pronounced
              Mn,-che’-we) but I will start at the beginning of our journey and describe the farm later.
              We left the hotel at Dar es Salaam for the station in a taxi crowded with baggage
              and at the last moment Keith Wood ran out with the unwrapped bottom layer of our
              wedding cake. It remained in its naked state from there to here travelling for two days in
              the train on the luggage rack, four days in the car on my knee, reposing at night on the
              roof of the car exposed to the winds of Heaven, and now rests beside me in the tent
              looking like an old old tombstone. We have no tin large enough to hold it and one
              simply can’t throw away ones wedding cake so, as George does not eat cake, I can see
              myself eating wedding cake for tea for months to come, ants permitting.

              We travelled up by train from Dar to Dodoma, first through the lush vegetation of
              the coastal belt to Morogoro, then through sisal plantations now very overgrown with
              weeds owing to the slump in prices, and then on to the arid area around Dodoma. This
              part of the country is very dry at this time of the year and not unlike parts of our Karoo.
              The train journey was comfortable enough but slow as the engines here are fed with
              wood and not coal as in South Africa.

              Dodoma is the nearest point on the railway to Mbeya so we left the train there to
              continue our journey by road. We arrived at the one and only hotel in the early hours and
              whilst someone went to rout out the night watchman the rest of us sat on the dismal
              verandah amongst a litter of broken glass. Some bright spark remarked on the obvious –
              that there had been a party the night before.

              When we were shown to a room I thought I rather preferred the verandah,
              because the beds had not yet been made up and there was a bucket of vomit beside
              the old fashioned washstand. However George soon got the boys to clean up the
              room and I fell asleep to be awakened by George with an invitation to come and see
              our car before breakfast.

              Yes, we have our own car. It is a Chev, with what is called a box body. That
              means that sides, roof and doors are made by a local Indian carpenter. There is just the
              one front seat with a kapok mattress on it. The tools are kept in a sort of cupboard fixed
              to the side so there is a big space for carrying “safari kit” behind the cab seat.
              Lamek, who had travelled up on the same train, appeared after breakfast, and
              helped George to pack all our luggage into the back of the car. Besides our suitcases
              there was a huge bedroll, kitchen utensils and a box of provisions, tins of petrol and
              water and all Lamek’s bits and pieces which included three chickens in a wicker cage and
              an enormous bunch of bananas about 3 ft long.

              When all theses things were packed there remained only a small space between
              goods and ceiling and into this Lamek squeezed. He lay on his back with his horny feet a
              mere inch or so from the back of my head. In this way we travelled 400 miles over
              bumpy earth roads and crude pole bridges, but whenever we stopped for a meal
              Lamek wriggled out and, like Aladdin’s genie, produced good meals in no time at all.
              In the afternoon we reached a large river called the Ruaha. Workmen were busy
              building a large bridge across it but it is not yet ready so we crossed by a ford below
              the bridge. George told me that the river was full of crocodiles but though I looked hard, I
              did not see any. This is also elephant country but I did not see any of those either, only
              piles of droppings on the road. I must tell you that the natives around these parts are called Wahehe and the river is Ruaha – enough to make a cat laugh. We saw some Wahehe out hunting with spears
              and bows and arrows. They live in long low houses with the tiniest shuttered windows
              and rounded roofs covered with earth.

              Near the river we also saw a few Masai herding cattle. They are rather terrifying to
              look at – tall, angular, and very aloof. They wear nothing but a blanket knotted on one
              shoulder, concealing nothing, and all carried one or two spears.
              The road climbs steeply on the far side of the Ruaha and one has the most
              tremendous views over the plains. We spent our first night up there in the high country.
              Everything was taken out of the car, the bed roll opened up and George and I slept
              comfortably in the back of the car whilst Lamek, rolled in a blanket, slept soundly by a
              small fire nearby. Next morning we reached our first township, Iringa, and put up at the
              Colonist Hotel. We had a comfortable room in the annex overlooking the golf course.
              our room had its own little dressing room which was also the bathroom because, when
              ordered to do so, the room boy carried in an oval galvanised bath and filled it with hot
              water which he carried in a four gallon petrol tin.

              When we crossed to the main building for lunch, George was immediately hailed
              by several men who wanted to meet the bride. I was paid some handsome
              compliments but was not sure whether they were sincere or the result of a nice alcoholic
              glow. Anyhow every one was very friendly.

              After lunch I went back to the bedroom leaving George chatting away. I waited and
              waited – no George. I got awfully tired of waiting and thought I’d give him a fright so I
              walked out onto the deserted golf course and hid behind some large boulders. Soon I
              saw George returning to the room and the boy followed with a tea tray. Ah, now the hue
              and cry will start, thought I, but no, no George appeared nor could I hear any despairing
              cry. When sunset came I trailed crossly back to our hotel room where George lay
              innocently asleep on his bed, hands folded on his chest like a crusader on his tomb. In a
              moment he opened his eyes, smiled sleepily and said kindly, “Did you have a nice walk
              my love?” So of course I couldn’t play the neglected wife as he obviously didn’t think
              me one and we had a very pleasant dinner and party in the hotel that evening.
              Next day we continued our journey but turned aside to visit the farm of a sprightly
              old man named St.Leger Seaton whom George had known for many years, so it was
              after dark before George decided that we had covered our quota of miles for the day.
              Whilst he and Lamek unpacked I wandered off to a stream to cool my hot feet which had
              baked all day on the floor boards of the car. In the rather dim moonlight I sat down on the
              grassy bank and gratefully dabbled my feet in the cold water. A few minutes later I
              started up with a shriek – I had the sensation of red hot pins being dug into all my most
              sensitive parts. I started clawing my clothes off and, by the time George came to the
              rescue with the lamp, I was practically in the nude. “Only Siafu ants,” said George calmly.
              Take off all your clothes and get right in the water.” So I had a bathe whilst George
              picked the ants off my clothes by the light of the lamp turned very low for modesty’s
              sake. Siafu ants are beastly things. They are black ants with outsized heads and
              pinchers. I shall be very, very careful where I sit in future.

              The next day was even hotter. There was no great variety in the scenery. Most
              of the country was covered by a tree called Miombo, which is very ordinary when the
              foliage is a mature deep green, but when in new leaf the trees look absolutely beautiful
              as the leaves,surprisingly, are soft pastel shades of red and yellow.

              Once again we turned aside from the main road to visit one of George’s friends.
              This man Major Hugh Jones MC, has a farm only a few miles from ours but just now he is supervising the making of an airstrip. Major Jones is quite a character. He is below
              average height and skinny with an almost bald head and one nearly blind eye into which
              he screws a monocle. He is a cultured person and will, I am sure, make an interesting
              neighbour. George and Major Jones’ friends call him ‘Joni’ but he is generally known in
              this country as ‘Ropesoles’ – as he is partial to that type of footwear.
              We passed through Mbeya township after dark so I have no idea what the place
              is like. The last 100 miles of our journey was very dusty and the last 15 miles extremely
              bumpy. The road is used so little that in some places we had to plow our way through
              long grass and I was delighted when at last George turned into a side road and said
              “This is our place.” We drove along the bank of the Mchewe River, then up a hill and
              stopped at a tent which was pitched beside the half built walls of our new home. We
              were expected so there was hot water for baths and after a supper of tinned food and
              good hot tea, I climbed thankfully into bed.

              Next morning I was awakened by the chattering of the African workmen and was
              soon out to inspect the new surroundings. Our farm was once part of Hickson Wood’s
              land and is separated from theirs by a river. Our houses cannot be more than a few
              hundred yards apart as the crow flies but as both are built on the slopes of a long range
              of high hills, and one can only cross the river at the foot of the slopes, it will be quite a
              safari to go visiting on foot . Most of our land is covered with shoulder high grass but it
              has been partly cleared of trees and scrub. Down by the river George has made a long
              coffee nursery and a large vegetable garden but both coffee and vegetable seedlings
              are too small to be of use.

              George has spared all the trees that will make good shade for the coffee later on.
              There are several huge wild fig trees as big as oaks but with smooth silvery-green trunks
              and branches and there are lots of acacia thorn trees with flat tops like Japanese sun
              shades. I’ve seen lovely birds in the fig trees, Louries with bright plumage and crested
              heads, and Blue Rollers, and in the grasslands there are widow birds with incredibly long
              black tail feathers.

              There are monkeys too and horrible but fascinating tree lizards with blue bodies
              and orange heads. There are so many, many things to tell you but they must wait for
              another time as James, the house boy, has been to say “Bafu tiari” and if I don’t go at
              once, the bath will be cold.

              I am very very happy and terribly interested in this new life so please don’t
              worry about me.

              Much love to you all,
              Eleanor.

              Mchewe Estate 29th. November 1930

              Dearest Family,

              I’ve lots of time to write letters just now because George is busy supervising the
              building of the house from early morning to late afternoon – with a break for lunch of
              course.

              On our second day here our tent was moved from the house site to a small
              clearing further down the slope of our hill. Next to it the labourers built a ‘banda’ , which is
              a three sided grass hut with thatched roof – much cooler than the tent in this weather.
              There is also a little grass lav. so you see we have every convenience. I spend most of
              my day in the banda reading or writing letters. Occasionally I wander up to the house site
              and watch the building, but mostly I just sit.

              I did try exploring once. I wandered down a narrow path towards the river. I
              thought I might paddle and explore the river a little but I came round a bend and there,
              facing me, was a crocodile. At least for a moment I thought it was and my adrenaline
              glands got very busy indeed. But it was only an enormous monitor lizard, four or five
              feet long. It must have been as scared as I was because it turned and rushed off through
              the grass. I turned and walked hastily back to the camp and as I passed the house site I
              saw some boys killing a large puff adder. Now I do my walking in the evenings with
              George. Nothing alarming ever seems to happen when he is around.

              It is interesting to watch the boys making bricks for the house. They make a pile
              of mud which they trample with their feet until it is the right consistency. Then they fill
              wooden moulds with the clayey mud, and press it down well and turn out beautiful shiny,
              dark brown bricks which are laid out in rows and covered with grass to bake slowly in the
              sun.

              Most of the materials for the building are right here at hand. The walls will be sun
              dried bricks and there is a white clay which will make a good whitewash for the inside
              walls. The chimney and walls will be of burnt brick and tiles and George is now busy
              building a kiln for this purpose. Poles for the roof are being cut in the hills behind the
              house and every day women come along with large bundles of thatching grass on their
              heads. Our windows are modern steel casement ones and the doors have been made
              at a mission in the district. George does some of the bricklaying himself. The other
              bricklayer is an African from Northern Rhodesia called Pedro. It makes me perspire just
              to look at Pedro who wears an overcoat all day in the very hot sun.
              Lamek continues to please. He turns out excellent meals, chicken soup followed
              by roast chicken, vegetables from the Hickson-Woods garden and a steamed pudding
              or fruit to wind up the meal. I enjoy the chicken but George is fed up with it and longs for
              good red meat. The chickens are only about as large as a partridge but then they cost
              only sixpence each.

              I had my first visit to Mbeya two days ago. I put on my very best trousseau frock
              for the occasion- that yellow striped silk one – and wore my wedding hat. George didn’t
              comment, but I saw later that I was dreadfully overdressed.
              Mbeya at the moment is a very small settlement consisting of a bundle of small
              Indian shops – Dukas they call them, which stock European tinned foods and native soft
              goods which seem to be mainly of Japanese origin. There is a one storied Government
              office called the Boma and two attractive gabled houses of burnt brick which house the
              District Officer and his Assistant. Both these houses have lovely gardens but i saw them
              only from the outside as we did not call. After buying our stores George said “Lets go to the pub, I want you to meet Mrs Menzies.” Well the pub turned out to be just three or four grass rondavels on a bare
              plot. The proprietor, Ken Menzies, came out to welcome us. I took to him at once
              because he has the same bush sandy eyebrows as you have Dad. He told me that
              unfortunately his wife is away at the coast, and then he ushered me through the door
              saying “Here’s George with his bride.” then followed the Iringa welcome all over again,
              only more so, because the room was full of diggers from the Lupa Goldfields about fifty
              miles away.

              Champagne corks popped as I shook hands all around and George was
              clapped on the back. I could see he was a favourite with everyone and I tried not to be
              gauche and let him down. These men were all most kind and most appeared to be men
              of more than average education. However several were unshaven and looked as
              though they had slept in their clothes as I suppose they had. When they have a little luck
              on the diggings they come in here to Menzies pub and spend the lot. George says
              they bring their gold dust and small nuggets in tobacco tins or Kruschen salts jars and
              hand them over to Ken Menzies saying “Tell me when I’ve spent the lot.” Ken then
              weighs the gold and estimates its value and does exactly what the digger wants.
              However the Diggers get good value for their money because besides the drink
              they get companionship and good food and nursing if they need it. Mrs Menzies is a
              trained nurse and most kind and capable from what I was told. There is no doctor or
              hospital here so her experience as a nursing sister is invaluable.
              We had lunch at the Hotel and afterwards I poured tea as I was the only female
              present. Once the shyness had worn off I rather enjoyed myself.

              Now to end off I must tell you a funny story of how I found out that George likes
              his women to be feminine. You will remember those dashing black silk pyjamas Aunt
              Mary gave me, with flowered “happy coat” to match. Well last night I thought I’d give
              George a treat and when the boy called me for my bath I left George in the ‘banda’
              reading the London Times. After my bath I put on my Japanese pyjamas and coat,
              peered into the shaving mirror which hangs from the tent pole and brushed my hair until it
              shone. I must confess that with my fringe and shingled hair I thought I made quite a
              glamourous Japanese girl. I walked coyly across to the ‘banda’. Alas no compliment.
              George just glanced up from the Times and went on reading.
              He was away rather a long time when it came to his turn to bath. I glanced up
              when he came back and had a slight concussion. George, if you please, was arrayed in
              my very best pale yellow satin nightie. The one with the lace and ribbon sash and little
              bows on the shoulder. I knew exactly what he meant to convey. I was not to wear the
              trousers in the family. I seethed inwardly, but pretending not to notice, I said calmly “shall
              I call for food?” In this garb George sat down to dinner and it says a great deal for African
              phlegm that the boy did not drop the dishes.

              We conversed politely about this and that, and then, as usual, George went off
              to bed. I appeared to be engrossed in my book and did not stir. When I went to the
              tent some time later George lay fast asleep still in my nightie, though all I could see of it
              was the little ribbon bows looking farcically out of place on his broad shoulders.
              This morning neither of us mentioned the incident, George was up and dressed
              by the time I woke up but I have been smiling all day to think what a ridiculous picture
              we made at dinner. So farewell to pyjamas and hey for ribbons and bows.

              Your loving
              Eleanor.

              Mchewe Estate. Mbeya. 8th December 1930

              Dearest Family,

              A mere shadow of her former buxom self lifts a languid pen to write to you. I’m
              convalescing after my first and I hope my last attack of malaria. It was a beastly
              experience but all is now well and I am eating like a horse and will soon regain my
              bounce.

              I took ill on the evening of the day I wrote my last letter to you. It started with a
              splitting headache and fits of shivering. The symptoms were all too familiar to George
              who got me into bed and filled me up with quinine. He then piled on all the available
              blankets and packed me in hot water bottles. I thought I’d explode and said so and
              George said just to lie still and I’d soon break into a good sweat. However nothing of the
              kind happened and next day my temperature was 105 degrees. Instead of feeling
              miserable as I had done at the onset, I now felt very merry and most chatty. George
              now tells me I sang the most bawdy songs but I hardly think it likely. Do you?
              You cannot imagine how tenderly George nursed me, not only that day but
              throughout the whole eight days I was ill. As we do not employ any African house
              women, and there are no white women in the neighbourhood at present to whom we
              could appeal for help, George had to do everything for me. It was unbearably hot in the
              tent so George decided to move me across to the Hickson-Woods vacant house. They
              have not yet returned from the coast.

              George decided I was too weak to make the trip in the car so he sent a
              messenger over to the Woods’ house for their Machila. A Machila is a canopied canvas
              hammock slung from a bamboo pole and carried by four bearers. The Machila duly
              arrived and I attempted to walk to it, clinging to George’s arm, but collapsed in a faint so
              the trip was postponed to the next morning when I felt rather better. Being carried by
              Machila is quite pleasant but I was in no shape to enjoy anything and got thankfully into
              bed in the Hickson-Woods large, cool and rather dark bedroom. My condition did not
              improve and George decided to send a runner for the Government Doctor at Tukuyu
              about 60 miles away. Two days later Dr Theis arrived by car and gave me two
              injections of quinine which reduced the fever. However I still felt very weak and had to
              spend a further four days in bed.

              We have now decided to stay on here until the Hickson-Woods return by which
              time our own house should be ready. George goes off each morning and does not
              return until late afternoon. However don’t think “poor Eleanor” because I am very
              comfortable here and there are lots of books to read and the days seem to pass very
              quickly.

              The Hickson-Wood’s house was built by Major Jones and I believe the one on
              his shamba is just like it. It is a square red brick building with a wide verandah all around
              and, rather astonishingly, a conical thatched roof. There is a beautiful view from the front
              of the house and a nice flower garden. The coffee shamba is lower down on the hill.
              Mrs Wood’s first husband, George’s friend Vi Lumb, is buried in the flower
              garden. He died of blackwater fever about five years ago. I’m told that before her
              second marriage Kath lived here alone with her little daughter, Maureen, and ran the farm
              entirely on her own. She must be quite a person. I bet she didn’t go and get malaria
              within a few weeks of her marriage.

              The native tribe around here are called Wasafwa. They are pretty primitive but
              seem amiable people. Most of the men, when they start work, wear nothing but some
              kind of sheet of unbleached calico wrapped round their waists and hanging to mid calf. As soon as they have drawn their wages they go off to a duka and buy a pair of khaki
              shorts for five or six shillings. Their women folk wear very short beaded skirts. I think the
              base is goat skin but have never got close enough for a good look. They are very shy.
              I hear from George that they have started on the roof of our house but I have not
              seen it myself since the day I was carried here by Machila. My letters by the way go to
              the Post Office by runner. George’s farm labourers take it in turn to act in this capacity.
              The mail bag is given to them on Friday afternoon and by Saturday evening they are
              back with our very welcome mail.

              Very much love,
              Eleanor.

              Mbeya 23rd December 1930

              Dearest Family,

              George drove to Mbeya for stores last week and met Col. Sherwood-Kelly VC.
              who has been sent by the Government to Mbeya as Game Ranger. His job will be to
              protect native crops from raiding elephants and hippo etc., and to protect game from
              poachers. He has had no training for this so he has asked George to go with him on his
              first elephant safari to show him the ropes.

              George likes Col. Kelly and was quite willing to go on safari but not willing to
              leave me alone on the farm as I am still rather shaky after malaria. So it was arranged that
              I should go to Mbeya and stay with Mrs Harmer, the wife of the newly appointed Lands
              and Mines Officer, whose husband was away on safari.

              So here I am in Mbeya staying in the Harmers temporary wattle and daub
              house. Unfortunately I had a relapse of the malaria and stayed in bed for three days with
              a temperature. Poor Mrs Harmer had her hands full because in the room next to mine
              she was nursing a digger with blackwater fever. I could hear his delirious babble through
              the thin wall – very distressing. He died poor fellow , and leaves a wife and seven
              children.

              I feel better than I have done for weeks and this afternoon I walked down to the
              store. There are great signs of activity and people say that Mbeya will grow rapidly now
              owing to the boom on the gold fields and also to the fact that a large aerodrome is to be
              built here. Mbeya is to be a night stop on the proposed air service between England
              and South Africa. I seem to be the last of the pioneers. If all these schemes come about
              Mbeya will become quite suburban.

              26th December 1930

              George, Col. Kelly and Mr Harmer all returned to Mbeya on Christmas Eve and
              it was decided that we should stay and have midday Christmas dinner with the
              Harmers. Col. Kelly and the Assistant District Commissioner came too and it was quite a
              festive occasion, We left Mbeya in the early afternoon and had our evening meal here at
              Hickson-Wood’s farm. I wore my wedding dress.

              I went across to our house in the car this morning. George usually walks across to
              save petrol which is very expensive here. He takes a short cut and wades through the
              river. The distance by road is very much longer than the short cut. The men are now
              thatching the roof of our cottage and it looks charming. It consists of a very large living
              room-dinning room with a large inglenook fireplace at one end. The bedroom is a large
              square room with a smaller verandah room adjoining it. There is a wide verandah in the
              front, from which one has a glorious view over a wide valley to the Livingstone
              Mountains on the horizon. Bathroom and storeroom are on the back verandah and the
              kitchen is some distance behind the house to minimise the risk of fire.

              You can imagine how much I am looking forward to moving in. We have some
              furniture which was made by an Indian carpenter at Iringa, refrectory dining table and
              chairs, some small tables and two armchairs and two cupboards and a meatsafe. Other
              things like bookshelves and extra cupboards we will have to make ourselves. George
              has also bought a portable gramophone and records which will be a boon.
              We also have an Irish wolfhound puppy, a skinny little chap with enormous feet
              who keeps me company all day whilst George is across at our farm working on the
              house.

              Lots and lots of love,
              Eleanor.

              Mchewe Estate 8th Jan 1931

              Dearest Family,

              Alas, I have lost my little companion. The Doctor called in here on Boxing night
              and ran over and killed Paddy, our pup. It was not his fault but I was very distressed
              about it and George has promised to try and get another pup from the same litter.
              The Hickson-Woods returned home on the 29th December so we decided to
              move across to our nearly finished house on the 1st January. Hicky Wood decided that
              we needed something special to mark the occasion so he went off and killed a sucking
              pig behind the kitchen. The piglet’s screams were terrible and I felt that I would not be
              able to touch any dinner. Lamek cooked and served sucking pig up in the traditional way
              but it was high and quite literally, it stank. Our first meal in our own home was not a
              success.

              However next day all was forgotten and I had something useful to do. George
              hung doors and I held the tools and I also planted rose cuttings I had brought from
              Mbeya and sowed several boxes with seeds.

              Dad asked me about the other farms in the area. I haven’t visited any but there
              are five besides ours. One belongs to the Lutheran Mission at Utengule, a few miles
              from here. The others all belong to British owners. Nearest to Mbeya, at the foot of a
              very high peak which gives Mbeya its name, are two farms, one belonging to a South
              African mining engineer named Griffiths, the other to I.G.Stewart who was an officer in the
              Kings African Rifles. Stewart has a young woman called Queenie living with him. We are
              some miles further along the range of hills and are some 23 miles from Mbeya by road.
              The Mchewe River divides our land from the Hickson-Woods and beyond their farm is
              Major Jones.

              All these people have been away from their farms for some time but have now
              returned so we will have some neighbours in future. However although the houses are
              not far apart as the crow flies, they are all built high in the foothills and it is impossible to
              connect the houses because of the rivers and gorges in between. One has to drive right
              down to the main road and then up again so I do not suppose we will go visiting very
              often as the roads are very bumpy and eroded and petrol is so expensive that we all
              save it for occasional trips to Mbeya.

              The rains are on and George has started to plant out some coffee seedlings. The
              rains here are strange. One can hear the rain coming as it moves like a curtain along the
              range of hills. It comes suddenly, pours for a little while and passes on and the sun
              shines again.

              I do like it here and I wish you could see or dear little home.

              Your loving,
              Eleanor.

              Mchewe Estate. 1st April 1931

              Dearest Family,

              Everything is now running very smoothly in our home. Lamek continues to
              produce palatable meals and makes wonderful bread which he bakes in a four gallon
              petrol tin as we have no stove yet. He puts wood coals on the brick floor of the kitchen,
              lays the tin lengh-wise on the coals and heaps more on top. The bread tins are then put
              in the petrol tin, which has one end cut away, and the open end is covered by a flat
              piece of tin held in place by a brick. Cakes are also backed in this make-shift oven and I
              have never known Lamek to have a failure yet.

              Lamek has a helper, known as the ‘mpishi boy’ , who does most of the hard
              work, cleans pots and pans and chops the firewood etc. Another of the mpishi boy’s
              chores is to kill the two chickens we eat each day. The chickens run wild during the day
              but are herded into a small chicken house at night. One of the kitchen boy’s first duties is
              to let the chickens out first thing in the early morning. Some time after breakfast it dawns
              on Lamek that he will need a chicken for lunch. he informs the kitchen boy who selects a
              chicken and starts to chase it in which he is enthusiastically joined by our new Irish
              wolfhound pup, Kelly. Together they race after the frantic fowl, over the flower beds and
              around the house until finally the chicken collapses from sheer exhaustion. The kitchen
              boy then hands it over to Lamek who murders it with the kitchen knife and then pops the
              corpse into boiling water so the feathers can be stripped off with ease.

              I pointed out in vain, that it would be far simpler if the doomed chickens were kept
              in the chicken house in the mornings when the others were let out and also that the correct
              way to pluck chickens is when they are dry. Lamek just smiled kindly and said that that
              may be so in Europe but that his way is the African way and none of his previous
              Memsahibs has complained.

              My houseboy, named James, is clean and capable in the house and also a
              good ‘dhobi’ or washboy. He takes the washing down to the river and probably
              pounds it with stones, but I prefer not to look. The ironing is done with a charcoal iron
              only we have no charcoal and he uses bits of wood from the kitchen fire but so far there
              has not been a mishap.

              It gets dark here soon after sunset and then George lights the oil lamps and we
              have tea and toast in front of the log fire which burns brightly in our inglenook. This is my
              favourite hour of the day. Later George goes for his bath. I have mine in the mornings
              and we have dinner at half past eight. Then we talk a bit and read a bit and sometimes
              play the gramophone. I expect it all sounds pretty unexciting but it doesn’t seem so to
              me.

              Very much love,
              Eleanor.

              Mchewe Estate 20th April 1931

              Dearest Family,

              It is still raining here and the countryside looks very lush and green, very different
              from the Mbeya district I first knew, when plains and hills were covered in long brown
              grass – very course stuff that grows shoulder high.

              Most of the labourers are hill men and one can see little patches of cultivation in
              the hills. Others live in small villages near by, each consisting of a cluster of thatched huts
              and a few maize fields and perhaps a patch of bananas. We do not have labour lines on
              the farm because our men all live within easy walking distance. Each worker has a labour
              card with thirty little squares on it. One of these squares is crossed off for each days work
              and when all thirty are marked in this way the labourer draws his pay and hies himself off
              to the nearest small store and blows the lot. The card system is necessary because
              these Africans are by no means slaves to work. They work only when they feel like it or
              when someone in the family requires a new garment, or when they need a few shillings
              to pay their annual tax. Their fields, chickens and goats provide them with the food they
              need but they draw rations of maize meal beans and salt. Only our headman is on a
              salary. His name is Thomas and he looks exactly like the statues of Julius Caesar, the
              same bald head and muscular neck and sardonic expression. He comes from Northern
              Rhodesia and is more intelligent than the locals.

              We still live mainly on chickens. We have a boy whose job it is to scour the
              countryside for reasonable fat ones. His name is Lucas and he is quite a character. He
              has such long horse teeth that he does not seem able to close his mouth and wears a
              perpetual amiable smile. He brings his chickens in beehive shaped wicker baskets
              which are suspended on a pole which Lucas carries on his shoulder.

              We buy our groceries in bulk from Mbeya, our vegetables come from our
              garden by the river and our butter from Kath Wood. Our fresh milk we buy from the
              natives. It is brought each morning by three little totos each carrying one bottle on his
              shaven head. Did I tell you that the local Wasafwa file their teeth to points. These kids
              grin at one with their little sharks teeth – quite an “all-ready-to-eat-you-with-my-dear” look.
              A few nights ago a message arrived from Kath Wood to say that Queenie
              Stewart was very ill and would George drive her across to the Doctor at Tukuyu. I
              wanted George to wait until morning because it was pouring with rain, and the mountain
              road to Tukuyu is tricky even in dry weather, but he said it is dangerous to delay with any
              kind of fever in Africa and he would have to start at once. So off he drove in the rain and I
              did not see him again until the following night.

              George said that it had been a nightmare trip. Queenie had a high temperature
              and it was lucky that Kath was able to go to attend to her. George needed all his
              attention on the road which was officially closed to traffic, and very slippery, and in some
              places badly eroded. In some places the decking of bridges had been removed and
              George had to get out in the rain and replace it. As he had nothing with which to fasten
              the decking to the runners it was a dangerous undertaking to cross the bridges especially
              as the rivers are now in flood and flowing strongly. However they reached Tukuyu safely
              and it was just as well they went because the Doctor diagnosed Queenies illness as
              Spirillium Tick Fever which is a very nasty illness indeed.

              Eleanor.

              Mchewe Estate. 20th May 1931

              Dear Family,

              I’m feeling fit and very happy though a bit lonely sometimes because George
              spends much of his time away in the hills cutting a furrow miles long to bring water to the
              house and to the upper part of the shamba so that he will be able to irrigate the coffee
              during the dry season.

              It will be quite an engineering feat when it is done as George only has makeshift
              surveying instruments. He has mounted an ordinary cheap spirit level on an old camera
              tripod and has tacked two gramophone needles into the spirit level to give him a line.
              The other day part of a bank gave way and practically buried two of George’s labourers
              but they were quickly rescued and no harm was done. However he will not let them
              work unless he is there to supervise.

              I keep busy so that the days pass quickly enough. I am delighted with the
              material you sent me for curtains and loose covers and have hired a hand sewing
              machine from Pedro-of-the-overcoat and am rattling away all day. The machine is an
              ancient German one and when I say rattle, I mean rattle. It is a most cumbersome, heavy
              affair of I should say, the same vintage as George Stevenson’s Rocket locomotive.
              Anyway it sews and I am pleased with my efforts. We made a couch ourselves out of a
              native bed, a mattress and some planks but all this is hidden under the chintz cover and
              it looks quite the genuine bought article. I have some diversions too. Small black faced
              monkeys sit in the trees outside our bedroom window and they are most entertaining to
              watch. They are very mischievous though. When I went out into the garden this morning
              before breakfast I found that the monkeys had pulled up all my carnations. There they
              lay, roots in the air and whether they will take again I don’t know.

              I like the monkeys but hate the big mountain baboons that come and hang
              around our chicken house. I am terrified that they will tear our pup into bits because he is
              a plucky young thing and will rush out to bark at the baboons.

              George usually returns for the weekends but last time he did not because he had
              a touch of malaria. He sent a boy down for the mail and some fresh bread. Old Lucas
              arrived with chickens just as the messenger was setting off with mail and bread in a
              haversack on his back. I thought it might be a good idea to send a chicken to George so
              I selected a spry young rooster which I handed to the messenger. He, however,
              complained that he needed both hands for climbing. I then had one of my bright ideas
              and, putting a layer of newspaper over the bread, I tucked the rooster into the haversack
              and buckled down the flap so only his head protruded.

              I thought no more about it until two days later when the messenger again
              appeared for fresh bread. He brought a rather terse note from George saying that the
              previous bread was uneatable as the rooster had eaten some of it and messed on the
              rest. Ah me!

              The previous weekend the Hickson-Woods, Stewarts and ourselves, went
              across to Tukuyu to attend a dance at the club there. the dance was very pleasant. All
              the men wore dinner jackets and the ladies wore long frocks. As there were about
              twenty men and only seven ladies we women danced every dance whilst the surplus
              men got into a huddle around the bar. George and I spent the night with the Agricultural
              Officer, Mr Eustace, and I met his fiancee, Lillian Austin from South Africa, to whom I took
              a great liking. She is Governess to the children of Major Masters who has a farm in the
              Tukuyu district.

              On the Sunday morning we had a look at the township. The Boma was an old German one and was once fortified as the Africans in this district are a very warlike tribe.
              They are fine looking people. The men wear sort of togas and bands of cloth around
              their heads and look like Roman Senators, but the women go naked except for a belt
              from which two broad straps hang down, one in front and another behind. Not a graceful
              garb I assure you.

              We also spent a pleasant hour in the Botanical Gardens, laid out during the last
              war by the District Commissioner, Major Wells, with German prisoner of war labour.
              There are beautiful lawns and beds of roses and other flowers and shady palm lined
              walks and banana groves. The gardens are terraced with flights of brick steps connecting
              the different levels and there is a large artificial pond with little islands in it. I believe Major
              Wells designed the lake to resemble in miniature, the Lakes of Killarney.
              I enjoyed the trip very much. We got home at 8 pm to find the front door locked
              and the kitchen boy fast asleep on my newly covered couch! I hastily retreated to the
              bedroom whilst George handled the situation.

              Eleanor.

              #5673

              The few cars on the dark road were flying past him at speed, sometimes honking in alarm when abruptly realizing he was there at an inch of being run over. But none had stopped so far. Might have been they couldn’t see his little thumb up.

              “Hitch-hiking my way back isn’t doing so well for me.” reflected Barron after a while. Oh, you may wonder how he escaped from his captors. Simple answer was he got bored waiting and he saw an opportunity.

              In reality, it was an elaborate plan, and the screeching sound of a nearby car had provided the right amount of distraction for him to make a run for it. Well, not run really, more like a patient and careful tumbling around. The sound had been alarming enough for most of the forces present to run for the potential intruders without caring to leave someone to watch over the innocent sleeping baby (that was him, but he wasn’t really sleeping).

              Anyway, he hadn’t made it very far outside the clandestine distillery at the back of the Motel, and was about to abandon all hope and phone his half-sister Yvanevskaia for help, when an old DRAPES CLEANING van suddenly braked to a screeching halt just in front of him.

              “Why d’ya stop Art’! They’re still after us, those maniacs!”

              “A baby honey! I almost ran over the baby!”

              “That’s a big ass baby, it’s almost a kid, and what is it doin’ hitch-hickin’ in the dead of night?”

              “I dunno my sweet cotton-candy luv,… maybe he got bored or sumthin’…”

              “So what are you waiting for? Just damn’ take it, and let’s pump gas and put some distance between us and these gangsters!”

              Barron was all too pleased to oblige, and as a matter of fact, had already managed to sit in the back with the funny looking lady with the long face.

              “Go!” he cooed at Arthur, who pushed the engine back into a roar.

              #4676

              When Hilda received the message from her old friend Lucinda her first thought was Miss Bossy Pants award for the “Most Stylistic Synchronistic Article”. There was already a synchronicity because she’s also had a tip off from some guy calling himself “Superjerk”, which was also about dolls. If she followed the lead about the doll stories, and managed to connect them together, it could be the scoop of the year ~ whether or not there was an actual connection between them.

              Hilda had made copious notes from the long and garbled telephone conversation with Lucinda about everything she knew thus far, and where she was stuck. Clearly the poor dear needed Hilda’s special expertise in following a lead and putting the clues together to form a picture. Admittedly Hilda didn’t always stick to facts ~ who did in journalism these days anyway! But she had an intuition that this was just what she needed to get her teeth into. It had been a boring year in the extreme reportage department. Extremely boring.

              It had been years since Hilda had been in contact with Lucinda, and that had been on a remote viewing forum. Neither of them had been much good at it, but some of the other members had been brilliant, so it came in useful at times to use their expertise. Hilda made a mental note to rejoin that forum, if it still existed, or find another one. She changed her mind about the mental note, and jotted it down in her notebook. It was a good idea and could come in handy.

              The short and cryptic note from the guy calling himself Superjerk didn’t provide much information other than the synchronicity, which was of course noteworthy. And he had provided the link to that website “findmydolls.com”. The story was already starting to show promising signs of weaving together.

              Not wanting any of the other staff to cotton on to her new thread, Hilda told Miss Bossy Pants that she was going to investigate the “hum” in Cadiz. That peculiar Horns of Gabriel phenomenon that occurred randomly around the world had been heard over a wide area of Cadiz and Seville. Hilda had another old friend in that neck of the woods; so she could easily pretend she was there covering that story, with a bit of collaboration from her friend, while she embarked on the real journey to the Flying Fish Inn, in some godforsaken outpost of the outback.

              That nosy Connie had somehow managed to find out about the whole thing, eavesdropping again no doubt, and Hilda had no option but to come clean with her and ask her to join her in ironing out the story. They would have to deal with Miss Bossy Pants later. If the scoop was the success that Hilda anticipated, then they would be getting an award, not a reprimand.

              It was worth it. Hilda felt more alive than she had done in a long time.

              #4404
              AvatarJib
              Participant

                Liz left her bed at 8:30am, wearing only her pink and blue doubled cotton night gown, a perfect hair and her fluffy pink blue mules. She had been thinking about her characters while the sun was trying to rise with great difficulty. Liz couldn’t blame the Sun as temperatures had dropped dramatically since the beginning of winter and the air outside was really cold.

                When Liz was thinking about her writings and her characters, she usually felt hungry. Someone had told her once that the brain was a hungry organ and that you needed fuel to make it work properly. She didn’t have a sweet tooth, but she wouldn’t say no to some cheesy toast, any time of the day.

                She had heard some noise coming from the kitchen, certainly Finnley doing who knows what, although certainly not cleaning. It might be the association between thinking about her characters and the noise in the kitchen that triggered her sudden craving for a melted slice of cheese on top of a perfectly burnished toast. The idea sufficed to make her stomach growl.

                She chuckled as she thought of inventing a new genre, the toast opera. Or was it a cackle?

                As she was lost in her morning musings, her mules gave that muffled slippery sound on the floor that Finnley found so unladylike. Liz didn’t care, she even deliberately slowed her pace. The slippery sound took on another dimension, extended and stretched to the limit of what was bearable even for herself. Liz grinned, thinking about Finnley’s slight twitching right eye as she certainly was trying to keep her composure in the kitchen.

                Liz, all cheerful, was testing the differences between a chuckle and a cackle when she entered the kitchen. She was about to ask Finnley what she thought about it when she saw a small person in a yellow tunic and green pants, washing the dishes.

                Liz stopped right there, forgetting all about chuckles and cackles and even toasts.

                “Where is Finnley?” she asked, not wanting to appear the least surprised. The small person turned her head toward Liz, still managing to keep on washing the dishes. It was a girl, obviously from India.

                “Good morning, Ma’am. I’m Anna, the new maid only.”

                “The new… maid?”

                Liz suddenly felt panic crawling behind her perfectly still face. She didn’t want to think about the implications.

                “Why don’t you use the dishwasher?” she asked, proud that she could keep the control of her voice despite her hunger, her questions about chuckles and cackles, and…

                “The dirty dishes are very less, there is no need to use the dishwasher only.”

                Liz looked at her bobbing her head sideways as if the spring had been mounted the wrong way.

                “Are you alright?” asked Anna with a worried look.

                “Of course, dear. Make me a toast with a slice of cheese will you?”

                “How do I do that?”

                “Well you take the toaster and you put the slice of bread inside and pushed the lever down… Have you never prepared toasts before?”

                “No, but yes, but I need to know how you like it only. I want to make it perfect for your liking, otherwise you won’t be satisfied.” The maid suddenly looked lost and anxious.

                “Just do as you usually do,” said Liz. “Goddfrey?” she called, leaving the kitchen before the maid could ask anymore questions.

                Where was Goddfrey when she needed him to explain everything?

                “You need me?” asked a voice behind her. He had appeared from nowhere, as if he could walk through the walls or teleport. Anyway, she never thought she would be so relieved to see him.

                “What’s that in the kitchen?”

                “What’s what? Oh! You mean her. The new maid.”

                He knew! Liz felt a strange blend of frustration, despair and anger. She took mental note to remember it for her next chapter, and came back to her emotional turmoil. Was she the only one unaware of such a bit change in her home?

                “Well, she followed us when we were in India. We don’t know how, but she managed to find a place in one of your trunks. Finnley found her as she had the porter unpacked the load. It seems she wants to help.”

                #4371
                TracyTracy
                Participant

                  “Oh, I almost forgot to give you this,” added Finnley, presenting Liz with a packet of cotton wool. “It’s to put in your ear while you’re in the foetal position, like the statue.”

                  “How did such a large statue come out of such a small packet?” Liz asked, wonderingly.

                  “Never question the mystical wonders of the great ascended master. Just place the cotton wool in your ear as instructed by the Great Lord of Kale.”

                  #4254

                  Eleri shivered. The cold had descended quickly once the rain had stopped. If only the rain had stopped a little sooner, she could have made her way back home, but as it was, Eleri had allowed Jolly to persuade her to spend the night in Trustinghampton.

                  Pulling the goat wool blankets closer, Eleri gazed at the nearly full moon framed in the attic window, the crumbling castle ramparts faintly visible in the silver light. The scene reminded her of another moonlit night many years ago, not long after she had first arrived here with Alexandria and Lobbocks.

                  It had been a summer night, and long before Leroway had improvised a cooling system with ventilation shafts constructed with old drainage pipes, a particularly molten sweltering night, and Eleri had risen from her crumpled sweaty bed to find a breath of cooler air. Quietly she slipped through the door willing it not to creak too much and awaken anyone. The cobblestones felt deliciously cool on her bare feet and she climbed the winding street towards the castle, her senses swathed in the scents of night flowering dama de noche. Lady of the Night, she whispered. Perhaps there would be a breeze up there.

                  She paused at the castle gate archway and turned to view the sleeping village below. A light glimmered from the window of Leroway’s workshop, but otherwise the village houses were the still dark quiet of the dreaming night.

                  Eleri wandered through the castle grounds, alternately focused on watching her step, and pausing for a few moments, lost in thoughts. It was good, this community, there was a promising feeling about it. It wasn’t always easy, but the hardships seemed lighter with the spirit of adventure and enthusiasm. And it was much better up here than it had been in the Lowlands, there was no doubt about that.

                  Her brow furrowed when she recalled her last days down there, when leaving had become the only possible course of action. Don’t dwell on that, she admonished herself silently. She resumed her aimless strolling.

                  Behind the castle, on the opposite side to the village, the ground fell away in series of small plateaus. At certain times of the years when the rains came, these plateaus were green meadows sprinkled with daisies and grazing goats, but now they were crisply browned and dry underfoot. Striking rock formations loomed in the darkness, looking like gun metal where the moonlight shone on them. One of them was shaped like a chair, a flat stone seat with an upright stone wedged behind it. Eleri sat, appreciating the feel of the cool rock through her thin dress and on her bare legs.

                  It feels like a throne, she thought, just before slipping into a half sleep. The dreams came immediately, as if they had already started and she only needed to shift her attention away from the hot night in the castle to another world. Her cotton shift became a long heavy coarsely woven gown, and her head was weighed down somehow. She had to move her head very slowly and only from side to side. She knew not to look down because of the weight of the thing on her head.

                  Looking to her right, she saw him. “Micawber Minn, at your service,” he said with a cheeky grin. “At last, you have returned.”

                  Eleri awoke with a start. Touching her head, she realized the weighty head dress was gone, although there was a ring of indentation in her hair. Her heavy gown was gone too, although she could still feel the places where the prickly cloth had scratched her.

                  Suddenly aware of the thin material of her dress, she glanced to her right. He was still there!

                  Spellbound, Eleri gazed at the magnificent man beside her. Surely she was still dreaming! Such an arresting face, finely chiseled features and penetrating but amused eyes. Broad shoulders, flowing platinum locks, really there was not much to fault. What a stroke of luck to find such a man, and on such a romantic night. And what a perfect setting!

                  And yet, although she knew she had never met him before, he seemed familiar. Eleri shifted her position on the stone throne and inched closer to him. He leaned towards her, opening his arms. And she fell into the rapture.

                  #3794

                  In reply to: The Hosts of Mars

                  EricEric
                  Keymaster

                    “You can call us the Blue Enders” said gently one of the blue aliens, which by the shade of it, must have been a top ranking official.
                    Kale was a bit confused, and space had a jelly consistency that harped and warped around his ears. It may have been the injections they gave him after the meeting with the sculpturesque Fin Min.

                    She had explained to him, they had made contact with a unknown sentient civilisation, and that they had in their infinite and blue compassion decided to warn us of impending doom on the Mars colony. They had requested a translator to go with them on a rescue mission on their faster-than-light bluship named Sprakle Star.

                    Hazy and fuzzy, he was quickly put and wrapped in a ball of cotton, ear-deep into a globe coaster of roller proportions.
                    At least, that’s how it felt… That waccine must have been full of blue bees.

                    “Arrival on Mars orbital level 1, in 5,… 4… 3…”

                    At least, the Blunders had the good idea to put an instant translator in his ear-muffins.

                    #3368

                    “I’m rubbish at meditation!” Irina said, opening her eyes after her tenth session in a row.

                    But she stopped surprised. What was Greenie doing here, smiling at her, with her hands pressed against one another, and a sleeping parrot in her lap?

                    Something had happened, something different… Prayer or meditation seemed to be the only solution she could come up with. What was happening? She was again in a loop of sorts, but so close to a breakthrough…

                    She looked at Greenie’s eyes, and started to remember… The flight above the clouds, the city…

                    Gwinie!” Irina’s eyes widened. “That’s your real name, isn’t it?”
                    Bits of informations were passing by, like a dream about to slip out of reach, but she relaxed, and like gently untangling a ball of cotton wool, considered the delicate bits of feelings of the dreamlike meditation, yes, the flying, the clouds, the… beanstalk? Something else, more dangerous, shrouded… What had happened to the little girl?

                    #2954
                    AvatarJib
                    Participant

                      There was something familiar with the road. The trees, the warmth. It was a fine weather for the season. Almost 70°F. Janet Mendyourhall had a strong feeling of déjà vu. She was on her way to Sedona to attend the annual Glasnik meeting. The Threshold to 2013. Since she had been posted to the West Coast, she was to attend every psychic or ET manifestation in the area. And believe it or not, there was a lot of them. The Lightbearers, Glasnik, The Crimson Feathers, and all the less famous ones like Birgitt’s Wheel from Germany, the reincarnation of Von Bingen.

                      Janet was trying to go to those events with an open mind, which usually means that as a premise you didn’t believe what you were going to see. And she had seen a lot of crap and a few gems.

                      She realized the car needed gas, luckily she was not far from Cottonwood. That name triggered steamy memories and a blush on her face. She had always loved meeting that young boy, he had such a sense of service, and such a wonderful body. She turned left without even thinking of it. The sun was high in the sky and the light was playing through the trees, still green her mind registered.

                      When she arrived at the station, the boy was discussing with another woman in a red car. Her hands squizzed the wheel and her lips tightened. That feeling of déjà vu again.

                      #2953
                      AvatarJib
                      Participant

                        Eventhough Stu was not very bright, he had always been successful with women. Thanks to his young and handsome body. He’s been working at the gas Station in Cottonwood since he was 15, he’d figured out at that time it was the best way to meet women. Some of them were even coming as far from Phoenix, and his boss was rather content about it too. He’d even encourage his employee to take off his shirt more often.

                        Days were following days, and it was the same routine, washing cars, filling gas tanks, meeting women. Nothing particular had even happen in Cottonwood. Of course there were often weirdos as they were close to Sedona. Some of them were asking if he had seen any ETs lately, or some guys asked him once if he’d ever been probed by aliens.
                        It was all part of the job, and he didn’t really pay attention. His best response was no response at all and play the dumb. Except with women. He would always find something to say to make them laugh and he especially loved to see those sparkles in their eyes, that’s when he knew he could ask them anything.

                        #2848

                        In reply to: scattered grasps

                        EricEric
                        Keymaster

                          That Abe sure is ugly as a burnt boot and crazier than a run over coon, aint he, said Isadora, one of the saloon girls who Twilight didn’t cotton on to much. The other girls laughed.

                          #2280

                          It was a pleasant walk to the Academy from Ann’s student digs, the leafy suburbs of Poubelleville were dappled with sunlight and sweetly scented with lilac blossom. Bird twittered in the trees and miniature zebras nibbled at the grass verges as Ann made her way to class. As she walked past a sidewalk cafe she spotted Monica, or rather Monica spotted Ann, and called her over to join her for a cup of rhubarb tea. Ann had forgotten she was late for class, and gave Monica the customary seven kisses ~ three on each cheek, and a final one on the nose ~ and pulled out a chair.

                          True to form ~ for Monica was the Academy’s best known gossip ~ after the inital pleasantries, the conversation soon turned to the latest scandal. Max the janitor, one of the students, and Professor Moose had been caught engaging in a menage a trois in the broom cupboard.

                          “All in aid of an assignment, so they said” explained Monica. “Who did you choose for your menage a trois, Ann? You’re in old Moose’s class, aren’t you?”

                          “Yeah, but I didn’t translate the assigment that way.” Ann frowned. “Gosh, I wrote a haiku about slobber instead, everyone will think I’m all prim and prunes.”

                          “Well, we only need one more” replied Monica with a sly grin.

                          “What?” Ann blushed as she cottoned on. “Oh!”

                          Monica wriggled about in her chair, revealing an expanse of lean tanned thigh, not altogether accidentally.

                          “Mind if I join you?” asked Good God Gordy, calling to the waiter for a cup of Hornygoatweed tea.

                          #2599

                          In reply to: Strings of Nines

                          TracyTracy
                          Participant

                            “That would depend” Gordon replied “On whether you wish to create plain white functional cotton or an elaborate brocade tapestry. You may wish to create strong reliable durable corduroy with it’s dependable grooves, or something eye catching in contrasting black and white. Gossamer fine colours, or sturdy weaves, lace and beadwork, traditional designs, and new ones, always new ones, take your pick!”

                            “I’ve forgotten what it was I was choosing now, Gordon” replied Ann. “Pass the walnuts.”

                            #1006

                            Bea sighed loudly, and dragged a tissue across her sweaty face. Leonora obviously hadn’t heard her, so Bea sighed loudly again.

                            What’s up with you now? asked Leo, who wasn’t really paying attention to Bea’s incessant whining.

                            Oh I dunno, I just don’t know what I want to do, Bea grumbled. My head’s in a fog. I’ve got hundreds of ideas, but I don’t want to do any of them badly enough to even think about starting anything. So then I try to sort a few thing out, you know, so I can bloody find things again, and I just end up with a big pile of bloody miscellaneous. It’s the bane of my life, all the miscellaneous stuff that defies categorizing. I should have been called Miss A. Laneous. I start to sort things out and then I get sidetracked; I never finish any sorting out, I just end up with more and more miscellaneous….her voice trailed off miserably.

                            Leo swiveled round in the computer chair, took off her glasses and glared at Bea. Bea, you know you always find what you need by trusting that you’ll find what you need when you need to find it. You’ve told me that time and time again. You’ve droned on and on about that, how you love finding ‘just the thing’ and ‘by accident’ and now you’re sitting there moaning and groaning because for some inexplicable reason ~ Leonora rolled her eyes ~ you think that having things neatly ordered would be a better way.

                            Well, it would be nice to be able to find what I’m looking for, Leo, Bea retorted.

                            Well if you found what you were looking for right away, you silly cow, you wouldn’t find all those other magical bloody surprises by friggen accident, now would you?

                            There’s no need to be rude, Bea said sniffily.

                            Now it was Leo’s turn to sigh. Why don’t you bugger off outside and find something to appreciate, you grumpy old bat. “Oh! look at this, Bea!” Leo exclaimed, “Look what I just found by accident!”

                            Leo swiveled the computer screen round so that her friend could see.

                            Illi sat up and surveyed her surroundings. The sky was a deep azure blue, the sun was making twinkling stars on the waters of the lagoon, a warm gentle breeze rustled the coconut palm leaves, and birds sang and twittered in the foliage. It was indeed idyllic, and Illi decided to simply enjoy it, while her new ideas formed into a reality.

                            Illi was enjoying a new found freedom in her contentment, in not pushing her energy in frustration, and meandered happily around the island taking mental snapshots of a thousand delightful and marvelous wonders, appreciating even the smallest most insignificant things. Time lost all sense of meaning: there were deep velvet indigo skies full of sequins, and there were abstract multicoloured sunrises and sunsets; there were cottonwool clouds in cartoon shapes suspended on a canvas of blue. It mattered not the day or night; there was no longer a sense of time passing, just a glorious collage of appreciation and beauty.”

                            Bea read the excerpt reluctantly, and harumphed.

                            Oh for Gut’s sake, Bea! Leo was getting exasperated. Try appreciating miscellaneous floundering fog then.

                            #944
                            EricEric
                            Keymaster

                              Becky pulled a loose cotton dress out of the suitcase, and scowled at her bikinis. I’ll go for a long hike, she muttered to herself, slipping a pair of strappy mule sandals on her feet. At least my legs aren’t fat! she said, admiring her slim ankles…

                              She stopped for a while wondering why this scene seemed so familiar. She had lived that day already… Was she going crazy?
                              What would you expect with time-traveling affairs? the voice of one of her babies smirked at her…

                              #942
                              TracyTracy
                              Participant

                                Becky pulled a loose cotton dress out of the suitcase, and scowled at her bikinis. I’ll go for a long hike, she muttered to herself, slipping a pair of strappy mule sandals on her feet. At least my legs aren’t fat! she said, admiring her slim ankles.

                                Slamming the door of the hotel bedroom behind her, Becky trotted down the stairs, hesitating momentarily at the dining room, she decided against breakfast, and strode out of the door into the morning sunshine.

                                Squinting in the glare of the bright tropical sun, Becky swore under her breath. Forgot my fucking sunglasses, damn! Not wanting to return to the bedroom and see Sean again, Becky strode on.

                                She walked and walked, hardly noticing a thing as she grumbled and fretted to herself. She reached the edge of the town and carried on walking; not paying attention to where she was going, she made randon turns to left and right, and eventually the paved roads petered out into dirt paths, and still Becky strode on in her flimsy sandals, squinting with the sun and the sweat that was dripping into her eyes.

                                By the middle of the afternoon, Becky was hopelessly lost and close to swooning with hunger and the overpowering heat, but she stumbled on. A sudden sharp pain almost doubled her over, and she stood clutching her stomach. Shit, I should have had breakfast, she swore under her breath, mistaking the pain for a hunger pang.

                                Perhaps a trifle unwisely, Becky decided to run, in an attempt to find the nearest house or village in which she could find a morsel to eat. Before long the inevitable happened, and she twisted her ankle on a stone and fell heavily, banging her head and knocking herself blissfully unconscious.

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