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Wood Screw Manufacturers

The Fishers of West Bromwich.

My great grandmother, Nellie Fisher, was born in 1877 in Wolverhampton.   Her father William 1834-1916 was a whitesmith, and his father William 1792-1873 was a whitesmith and master screw maker.  William’s father was Abel Fisher, wood screw maker, victualler, and according to his 1849 will, a “gentleman”.

Nellie Fisher 1877-1956 :

Abel Fisher was born in 1769 according to his burial document (age 81 in 1849) and on the 1841 census. Abel was a wood screw manufacturer in Wolverhampton.

As no baptism record can be found for Abel Fisher, I read every Fisher will I could find in a 30 year period hoping to find his fathers will. I found three other Fishers who were wood screw manufacurers in neighbouring West Bromwich, which led me to assume that Abel was born in West Bromwich and related to these other Fishers.

The wood screw making industry was a relatively new thing when Abel was born.

“The screw was used in furniture but did not become a common woodworking fastener until efficient machine tools were developed near the end of the 18th century. The earliest record of lathe made wood screws dates to an English patent of 1760. The development of wood screws progressed from a small cottage industry in the late 18th century to a highly mechanized industry by the mid-19th century. This rapid transformation is marked by several technical innovations that help identify the time that a screw was produced. The earliest, handmade wood screws were made from hand-forged blanks. These screws were originally produced in homes and shops in and around the manufacturing centers of 18th century Europe. Individuals, families or small groups participated in the production of screw blanks and the cutting of the threads. These small operations produced screws individually, using a series of files, chisels and cutting tools to form the threads and slot the head. Screws produced by this technique can vary significantly in their shape and the thread pitch. They are most easily identified by the profusion of file marks (in many directions) over the surface. The first record regarding the industrial manufacture of wood screws is an English patent registered to Job and William Wyatt of Staffordshire in 1760.”

Wood Screw Makers of West Bromwich:

Edward Fisher, wood screw maker of West Bromwich, died in 1796. He mentions his wife Pheney and two underage sons in his will. Edward (whose baptism has not been found) married Pheney Mallin on 13 April 1793. Pheney was 17 years old, born in 1776. Her parents were Isaac Mallin and Sarah Firme, who were married in West Bromwich in 1768.
Edward and Pheney’s son Edward was born on 21 October 1793, and their son Isaac in 1795. The executors of Edwards 1796 will are Daniel Fisher the Younger, Isaac Mallin, and Joseph Fisher.

There is a marriage allegations and bonds document in 1774 for an Edward Fisher, bachelor and wood screw maker of West Bromwich, aged 25 years and upwards, and Mary Mallin of the same age, father Isaac Mallin. Isaac Mallin and Sarah didn’t marry until 1768 and Mary Mallin would have been born circa 1749. Perhaps Isaac Mallin’s father was the father of Mary Mallin. It’s possible that Edward Fisher was born in 1749 and first married Mary Mallin, and then later Pheney, but it’s also possible that the Edward Fisher who married Mary Mallin in 1774 was Edward Fishers uncle, Daniel’s brother.  (I do not know if Daniel had a brother Edward, as I haven’t found a baptism, or marriage, for Daniel Fisher the elder.)

There are two difficulties with finding the records for these West Bromwich families. One is that the West Bromwich registers are not available online in their entirety, and are held by the Sandwell Archives, and even so, they are incomplete. Not only that, the Fishers were non conformist. There is no surviving register prior to 1787. The chapel opened in 1788, and any registers that existed before this date, taken in a meeting houses for example, appear not to have survived.

Daniel Fisher the younger died intestate in 1818. Daniel was a wood screw maker of West Bromwich. He was born in 1751 according to his age stated as 67 on his death in 1818. Daniel’s wife Mary, and his son William Fisher, also a wood screw maker, claimed the estate.

Daniel Fisher the elder was a farmer of West Bromwich, who died in 1806. He was 81 when he died, which makes a birth date of 1725, although no baptism has been found. No marriage has been found either, but he was probably married not earlier than 1746.

Daniel’s sons Daniel and Joseph were the main inheritors, and he also mentions his other children and grandchildren namely William Fisher, Thomas Fisher, Hannah wife of William Hadley, two grandchildren Edward and Isaac Fisher sons of Edward Fisher his son deceased. Daniel the elder presumably refers to the wood screw manufacturing when he says “to my son Daniel Fisher the good will and advantage which may arise from his manufacture or trade now carried on by me.” Daniel does not mention a son called Abel unfortunately, but neither does he mention his other grandchildren. Abel may be Daniel’s son, or he may be a nephew.

The Staffordshire Record Office holds the documents of a Testamentary Case in 1817. The principal people are Isaac Fisher, a legatee; Daniel and Joseph Fisher, executors. Principal place, West Bromwich, and deceased person, Daniel Fisher the elder, farmer.

William and Sarah Fisher baptised six children in the Mares Green Non Conformist registers in West Bromwich between 1786 and 1798. William Fisher and Sarah Birch were married in West Bromwich in 1777. This William was probably born circa 1753 and was probably the son of Daniel Fisher the elder, farmer.

Daniel Fisher the younger and his wife Mary had a son William, as mentioned in the intestacy papers, although I have not found a baptism for William.  I did find a baptism for another son, Eutychus Fisher in 1792.

In White’s Directory of Staffordshire in 1834, there are three Fishers who are wood screw makers in Wolverhampton: Eutychus Fisher, Oxford Street; Stephen Fisher, Bloomsbury; and William Fisher, Oxford Street.

Abel’s son William Fisher 1792-1873 was living on Oxford Street on the 1841 census, with his wife Mary  and their son William Fisher 1834-1916.

In The European Magazine, and London Review of 1820  (Volume 77 – Page 564) under List of Patents, W Fisher and H Fisher of West Bromwich, wood screw manufacturers, are listed.  Also in 1820 in the Birmingham Chronicle, the partnership of William and Hannah Fisher, wood screw manufacturers of West Bromwich, was dissolved.

In the Staffordshire General & Commercial Directory 1818, by W. Parson, three Fisher’s are listed as wood screw makers.  Abel Fisher victualler and wood screw maker, Red Lion, Walsal Road; Stephen Fisher wood screw maker, Buggans Lane; and Daniel Fisher wood screw manufacturer, Brickiln Lane.

In Aris’s Birmingham Gazette on 4 January 1819 Abel Fisher is listed with 23 other wood screw manufacturers (Stephen Fisher and William Fisher included) stating that “In consequence of the rise in prices of iron and the advanced price given to journeymen screw forgers, we the undersigned manufacturers of wood screws are under the necessity of advancing screws 10 percent, to take place on the 11th january 1819.”

In Abel Fisher’s 1849 will, he names his three sons Abel Fisher 1796-1869, Paul Fisher 1811-1900 and John Southall Fisher 1801-1871 as the executors.  He also mentions his other three sons, William Fisher 1792-1873, Benjamin Fisher 1798-1870, and Joseph Fisher 1803-1876, and daughters Sarah Fisher  1794-  wife of William Colbourne, Mary Fisher  1804-  wife of Thomas Pearce, and Susannah (Hannah) Fisher  1813-  wife of Parkes.  His son Silas Fisher 1809-1837 wasn’t mentioned as he died before Abel, nor his sons John Fisher  1799-1800, and Edward Southall Fisher 1806-1843.  Abel’s wife Susannah Southall born in 1771 died in 1824.  They were married in 1791.

The 1849 will of Abel Fisher:

Zara offered the following quirk: “unleash my hidden rudeness”

More developments

Chapter 3: The Journey becomes more eggciting

The Flovlinden Tree

The group reaches the Flovlinden Tree, a massive linden tree in the heart of Oocrane, which is said to be sacred and is attracting crowds of pilgrims.
They meet Olek, the old caretaker of the tree, who tells them the story of Saint Edigna. He explains how the tree is said to have magical healing properties, and how the tree is responsible for the sacred oil that the pilgrims come to collect.
However, Olek reveals that the secret of Saint Edigna is not what it seems. Edna, an old woman who has been living far from the crowd for thousands of years, is actually Saint Edigna.
Olek shares that Edna has been living in solitude for very long. He tells the group that if they want to learn more about the sacred tree and Edna, they must travel to her hidden home.
The four friends were shocked to hear that Edna was still alive and wanted to meet her. They asked Olek for directions, and he gave them a map that showed the way to Edna’s remote dwelling.
They bid farewell to Olek and set off on their journey to find Edna.

A Run-In with Myroslava

The group comes across a former war reporter, Myroslava, who is traveling on her own after leaving a group of journalists. She is being followed by mysterious individuals and is trying to lose them by hunting and making fire in bombed areas.
Myroslava is frustrated and curses her lack of alcohol, wishing she could find a place to escape from her pursuers.
The group approaches Myroslava and offers to help her. She joins forces with them and together, they set off on their journey.
As they travel, Myroslava shares her experiences as a war reporter, and the group listens in awe. She explains how she has seen the worst of humanity, but also the best, and how it has changed her as a person.
Myroslava and the group continue their journey, with the former reporter becoming more and more determined to shake off her pursuers and continue on her own.

A Visit with Eusebius Kazandis’ Relatives

The group reaches a small village where they are expected by relatives of Eusebius Kazandis, the cauldron seller that Rose has met at the Innsbruck fair.
The relatives tell the group about Kazandis and his business, and how he has been traveling the world, selling his wares. They explain how he has become a legend in their village, and how proud they are of him.
The group learns about Kazandis’ passion for cooking and how he uses his cauldrons to create delicious meals for his customers. They are also shown his secret recipe book, which has been passed down for generations.
The relatives invite the group to try some of Kazandis’ famous dishes, and they are blown away by the delicious flavors.
The group thanks the relatives for their hospitality and sets off on their journey, with a newfound appreciation for Kazandis and his love of cooking.

A Surprising Encounter with Edna

The group finally reaches Edna’s hidden home, a small cottage in the middle of a dense forest.
As they approach the cottage, they are surprised to see Edna, who is actually the legendary Saint Edigna, standing outside, waiting for them.

The four friends have finally arrived at Edna’s dwelling, where they learned about her vast knowledge of the families connected to her descendants. Edna showed them her books, and they were amazed to find that their own family was listed among her descendants. They were even more shocked to learn that they were related to President Voldomeer Zumbasky and Dumbass Voldomeer, who was said to be a distant relative and carpenter who made the President’s wooden leg. It was rumored that they shared a common ancestor, but in reality, they were possibly secret twins.

The Secret of Dumbass Voldomeer

The four friends were determined to find out more about Dumbass Voldomeer and his connection to their family. They learned that he lived in the small city of Duckailingtown in Dumbass, near the Rootian border. They also discovered that Dumbass Voldomeer had been enrolled to take the place of the President, who had succumbed from a mysterious swan flu virus, to which Dumbass Voldomeer was immune. As they set to Duckailingtown, they couldn’t help but wonder what other secrets and surprises lay ahead for them on this incredible journey.

With a determined glint in his eye, Xavier set his sights on the slot machines. He scanned the rows of blinking lights and flashing screens until one caught his attention. He approached the machine and inserted a coin, feeling a rush of excitement as he pulled the lever.

With a satisfying whir, the reels began to spin, and before he knew it, the golden banana appeared on the screen, lining up perfectly. The machine erupted in flashing lights and loud noises, and a ticket spilled out onto the floor.

🎰 · 💰
🍌🍌🍌

Xavier picked it up, reading aloud the inscriptions on the ticket, “Congratulations on completing your quest. You may enjoy your trip until the next stage of your journey. Look for the cook on the pirate boat, she will give you directions to regroup with your friends. And don’t forget to confirm your bookings.”

Glimmer let out a whoop of trepidation, “Let’s go find that cook, Xav! I can’t wait to see what’s next in store for us!”

But Xavier, feeling a bit worn out, replied with a smile, “Hold on a minute, love. All I need at the moment is just some R&R after all that brouhaha.”

Glimmer nodded in understanding and they both made their way to the deck, taking in the fresh air and the breathtaking scenery as the boat sailed towards its next destination.

As the boat continued its journey, sailing and gliding on the river in the air filled with moist, they could start to see across the mist opening like a heavy curtain a colourful floating market in the distance, and the sounds of haggling and laughter filled the air.

They couldn’t wait to explore and see what treasures and surprises awaited them. The journey was far from over, but for now, they were content to simply enjoy the ride.

Xavier closed his laptop while his friends were still sending messages on the chatroom. He’d had long days of work before leaving to take his flights to Australia, during which he hoped he could rest enough during the flights.

Most of the flights he’d checked had a minimum of 3 layovers, and a unbelievably long durations (not to count the astronomic amount of carbon emissions). Against all common sense, he’d taken one of the longest flight duration. It was 57h, but only 3 layovers. From Berlin, to Stockholm, then Dubai and Sydney. He could probably catch up with Youssef there as apparently he sent a message before boarding. They could go to Alice Spring and the Frying Mush Inn together. He’d try to find the reviews, but they were only listed on boutiquehotelsdownunder.com and didn’t have the rave reviews of the prestigious Kookynie Grand Hotel franchise. God knows what Zara had in mind while booking this place, it’d better be good. Reminded him of the time they all went to that improbably ghastly hotel in Spain (at the time Yasmin was still volunteering in a mission and couldn’t join) for a seminar with other game loonies and cosplayers. Those were the early days of the game, and the technology frankly left a lot to be desired at the time. They’d ended up eating raspberry jam with disposable toothbrushes, and get drunk on laughter.

When Brytta had seen the time it took to go there, she’d reconsidered coming. She couldn’t afford taking that much time off, and spending the equivalent of 4 full days of her hard-won vacation as a nurse into a plane simply for the round-trip —there was simply no way.
Xavier had proposed to shorten his stay, but she’d laughed and said, “you go there, I’ll enjoy some girl time with my friends, and I’ll work on my painting” —it was more convenient when he was gone for business trips, she would be able to put all the materials out, and not care to keep the apartment neat and tidy.

The backpack was ready with the essentials; Xavier liked to travel light.

With the flurry of activities going around, in life and virtually, Xavier had trouble keeping track.

His sanity demanded some clarity of intention and some focus. Too many threads were open, and of all things, he didn’t like loose ends.
Somehow that silly notion of the Golden Banana quest did pose him a nagging reminder of something incomplete he was eager to get a resolution to. That, or he was unconsciously getting annoyed at seeing his 3 friends making strides in their adventures. The pirate quest was fun enough, but he’d rather enjoy it without having to check everything against being a possible clue.

There were no rules against cheating. The thought struck him. Maybe that was it. The simplicity of it!

Since they made the rules, they could make them, break them, amend or bend them.

He looked up on the internet for an image he could feed AL, and *bam* it was there! In all its glory, a gorgeous Golden Banana on a purple cushion, in a pirate chest. The reward for an online game… That was eerie!

He’d had a sneaking suspicion the game was not just about virtual any longer. Synchronistic happenings like that were more than just random.

He logged into the game only to discover a simple message.

“Congratulations on completing your quest. You may enjoy your trip until the next stage of your journey.
Look for the cook on the pirate boat, she will give you directions to regroup with your friends.
And don’t forget to confirm your bookings.”

Xavier’s quirk offering is being a cheeky monkey

Quirk accepted.

The initial setting for Xavier’s quest is a lush jungle filled with mischievous monkeys. Your mission is to find the legendary Golden Banana, which is said to grant eternal youth and vitality to whoever finds it. However, be warned as the jungle is also home to a tribe of fierce apes who will stop at nothing to protect the precious fruit.

Possible directions to investigate include

• searching for clues in the monkey’s sacred temples hidden deep within the jungle,
• or seeking out the help of a wise old owl who is said to know the location of the Golden Banana.

As for possible characters to engage, you may come across

• a sly fox who claims to know the location of the fruit but will only reveal it in exchange for a favor,
• or a brave adventurer who has been searching for the Golden Banana for years and may be willing to team up with you.

In regards to the FFI visit in real-life, you may discover a mysterious map hidden within the Inn that leads to the location of the Golden Banana, or overhear a conversation between the Inn’s patrons discussing rumors of a monkey who recently visited and may hold valuable information about the quest.

Emoji clue: Xavier: 🐒🍌

From Tanganyika with Love

continued part 8

With thanks to Mike Rushby.

Morogoro 20th January 1941

Dearest Family,

It is all arranged for us to go on three months leave to Cape Town next month so
get out your flags. How I shall love showing off Kate and John to you and this time
George will be with us and you’ll be able to get to know him properly. You can’t think
what a comfort it will be to leave all the worries of baggage and tipping to him. We will all
be travelling by ship to Durban and from there to Cape Town by train. I rather dread the
journey because there is a fifth little Rushby on the way and, as always, I am very
queasy.

Kate has become such a little companion to me that I dread the thought of leaving
her behind with you to start schooling. I miss Ann and George so much now and must
face separation from Kate as well. There does not seem to be any alternative though.
There is a boarding school in Arusha and another has recently been started in Mbeya,
but both places are so far away and I know she would be very unhappy as a boarder at
this stage. Living happily with you and attending a day school might wean her of her
dependance upon me. As soon as this wretched war ends we mean to get Ann and
George back home and Kate too and they can then all go to boarding school together.
If I were a more methodical person I would try to teach Kate myself, but being a
muddler I will have my hands full with Johnny and the new baby. Life passes pleasantly
but quietly here. Much of my time is taken up with entertaining the children and sewing
for them and just waiting for George to come home.

George works so hard on these safaris and this endless elephant hunting to
protect native crops entails so much foot safari, that he has lost a good deal of weight. it
is more than ten years since he had a holiday so he is greatly looking forward to this one.
Four whole months together!

I should like to keep the ayah, Janet, for the new baby, but she says she wants
to return to her home in the Southern Highlands Province and take a job there. She is
unusually efficient and so clean, and the houseboy and cook are quite scared of her. She
bawls at them if the children’s meals are served a few minutes late but she is always
respectful towards me and practically creeps around on tiptoe when George is home.
She has a room next to the outside kitchen. One night thieves broke into the kitchen and
stole a few things, also a canvas chair and mat from the verandah. Ayah heard them, and
grabbing a bit of firewood, she gave chase. Her shouts so alarmed the thieves that they
ran off up the hill jettisoning their loot as they ran. She is a great character.

Eleanor.

Morogoro 30th July 1941

Dearest Family,

Safely back in Morogoro after a rather grim voyage from Durban. Our ship was
completely blacked out at night and we had to sleep with warm clothing and life belts
handy and had so many tedious boat drills. It was a nuisance being held up for a whole
month in Durban, because I was so very pregnant when we did embark. In fact George
suggested that I had better hide in the ‘Ladies’ until the ship sailed for fear the Captain
might refuse to take me. It seems that the ship, on which we were originally booked to
travel, was torpedoed somewhere off the Cape.

We have been given a very large house this tour with a mosquito netted
sleeping porch which will be fine for the new baby. The only disadvantage is that the
house is on the very edge of the residential part of Morogoro and Johnny will have to
go quite a distance to find playmates.

I still miss Kate terribly. She is a loving little person. I had prepared for a scene
when we said good-bye but I never expected that she would be the comforter. It
nearly broke my heart when she put her arms around me and said, “I’m so sorry
Mummy, please don’t cry. I’ll be good. Please don’t cry.” I’m afraid it was all very
harrowing for you also. It is a great comfort to hear that she has settled down so happily.
I try not to think consciously of my absent children and remind myself that there are
thousands of mothers in the same boat, but they are always there at the back of my
mind.

Mother writes that Ann and George are perfectly happy and well, and that though
German bombers do fly over fairly frequently, they are unlikely to drop their bombs on
a small place like Jacksdale.

George has already left on safari to the Rufiji. There was no replacement for his
job while he was away so he is anxious to get things moving again. Johnny and I are
going to move in with friends until he returns, just in case all the travelling around brings
the new baby on earlier than expected.

Eleanor.

Morogoro 26th August 1941

Dearest Family,

Our new son, James Caleb. was born at 3.30 pm yesterday afternoon, with a
minimum of fuss, in the hospital here. The Doctor was out so my friend, Sister Murray,
delivered the baby. The Sister is a Scots girl, very efficient and calm and encouraging,
and an ideal person to have around at such a time.

Everything, this time, went without a hitch and I feel fine and proud of my
bouncing son. He weighs nine pounds and ten ounces and is a big boned fellow with
dark hair and unusually strongly marked eyebrows. His eyes are strong too and already
seem to focus. George is delighted with him and brought Hugh Nelson to see him this
morning. Hugh took one look, and, astonished I suppose by the baby’s apparent
awareness, said, “Gosh, this one has been here before.” The baby’s cot is beside my
bed so I can admire him as much as I please. He has large strong hands and George
reckons he’ll make a good boxer some day.

Another of my early visitors was Mabemba, George’s orderly. He is a very big
African and looks impressive in his Game Scouts uniform. George met him years ago at
Mahenge when he was a young elephant hunter and Mabemba was an Askari in the
Police. Mabemba takes quite a proprietary interest in the family.

Eleanor.

Morogoro 25th December 1941

Dearest Family,

Christmas Day today, but not a gay one. I have Johnny in bed with a poisoned
leg so he missed the children’s party at the Club. To make things a little festive I have
put up a little Christmas tree in the children’s room and have hung up streamers and
balloons above the beds. Johnny demands a lot of attention so it is fortunate that little
James is such a very good baby. He sleeps all night until 6 am when his feed is due.
One morning last week I got up as usual to feed him but I felt so dopey that I
thought I’d better have a cold wash first. I went into the bathroom and had a hurried
splash and then grabbed a towel to dry my face. Immediately I felt an agonising pain in
my nose. Reason? There was a scorpion in the towel! In no time at all my nose looked
like a pear and felt burning hot. The baby screamed with frustration whilst I feverishly
bathed my nose and applied this and that in an effort to cool it.

For three days my nose was very red and tender,”A real boozer nose”, said
George. But now, thank goodness, it is back to normal.

Some of the younger marrieds and a couple of bachelors came around,
complete with portable harmonium, to sing carols in the early hours. No sooner had we
settled down again to woo sleep when we were disturbed by shouts and screams from
our nearest neighbour’s house. “Just celebrating Christmas”, grunted George, but we
heard this morning that the neighbour had fallen down his verandah steps and broken his
leg.

Eleanor.

Morogoro Hospital 30th September 1943

Dearest Family,

Well now we are eight! Our new son, Henry, was born on the night of the 28th.
He is a beautiful baby, weighing ten pounds three and a half ounces. This baby is very
well developed, handsome, and rather superior looking, and not at all amusing to look at
as the other boys were.George was born with a moustache, John had a large nose and
looked like a little old man, and Jim, bless his heart, looked rather like a baby
chimpanzee. Henry is different. One of my visitors said, “Heaven he’ll have to be a
Bishop!” I expect the lawn sleeves of his nightie really gave her that idea, but the baby
does look like ‘Someone’. He is very good and George, John, and Jim are delighted
with him, so is Mabemba.

We have a dear little nurse looking after us. She is very petite and childish
looking. When the baby was born and she brought him for me to see, the nurse asked
his name. I said jokingly, “His name is Benjamin – the last of the family.” She is now very
peeved to discover that his real name is Henry William and persists in calling him
‘Benjie’.I am longing to get home and into my pleasant rut. I have been away for two
whole weeks and George is managing so well that I shall feel quite expendable if I don’t
get home soon. As our home is a couple of miles from the hospital, I arranged to move
in and stay with the nursing sister on the day the baby was due. There I remained for ten
whole days before the baby was born. Each afternoon George came and took me for a
ride in the bumpy Bedford lorry and the Doctor tried this and that but the baby refused
to be hurried.

On the tenth day I had the offer of a lift and decided to go home for tea and
surprise George. It was a surprise too, because George was entertaining a young
Game Ranger for tea and my arrival, looking like a perambulating big top, must have
been rather embarrassing.Henry was born at the exact moment that celebrations started
in the Township for the end of the Muslim religious festival of Ramadan. As the Doctor
held him up by his ankles, there was the sound of hooters and firecrackers from the town.
The baby has a birthmark in the shape of a crescent moon above his left eyebrow.

Eleanor.

Morogoro 26th January 1944

Dearest Family,

We have just heard that we are to be transferred to the Headquarters of the
Game Department at a place called Lyamungu in the Northern Province. George is not
at all pleased because he feels that the new job will entail a good deal of office work and
that his beloved but endless elephant hunting will be considerably curtailed. I am glad of
that and I am looking forward to seeing a new part of Tanganyika and particularly
Kilimanjaro which dominates Lyamungu.

Thank goodness our menagerie is now much smaller. We found a home for the
guinea pigs last December and Susie, our mischievous guinea-fowl, has flown off to find
a mate.Last week I went down to Dar es Salaam for a check up by Doctor John, a
woman doctor, leaving George to cope with the three boys. I was away two nights and
a day and returned early in the morning just as George was giving Henry his six o’clock
bottle. It always amazes me that so very masculine a man can do my chores with no
effort and I have a horrible suspicion that he does them better than I do. I enjoyed the
short break at the coast very much. I stayed with friends and we bathed in the warm sea
and saw a good film.

Now I suppose there will be a round of farewell parties. People in this country
are most kind and hospitable.

Eleanor.

Lyamungu 20th March 1944

Dearest Family,

We left Morogoro after the round of farewell parties I had anticipated. The final
one was at the Club on Saturday night. George made a most amusing speech and the
party was a very pleasant occasion though I was rather tired after all the packing.
Several friends gathered to wave us off on Monday morning. We had two lorries
loaded with our goods. I rode in the cab of the first one with Henry on my knee. George
with John and Jim rode in the second one. As there was no room for them in the cab,
they sat on our couch which was placed across the width of the lorry behind the cab. This
seat was not as comfortable as it sounds, because the space behind the couch was
taken up with packing cases which were not lashed in place and these kept moving
forward as the lorry bumped its way over the bad road.

Soon there was hardly any leg room and George had constantly to stand up and
push the second layer of packing cases back to prevent them from toppling over onto
the children and himself. As it is now the rainy season the road was very muddy and
treacherous and the lorries travelled so slowly it was dark by the time we reached
Karogwe from where we were booked to take the train next morning to Moshi.
Next morning we heard that there had been a washaway on the line and that the
train would be delayed for at least twelve hours. I was not feeling well and certainly did
not enjoy my day. Early in the afternoon Jimmy ran into a wall and blackened both his
eyes. What a child! As the day wore on I felt worse and worse and when at last the train
did arrive I simply crawled into my bunk whilst George coped nobly with the luggage
and the children.

We arrived at Moshi at breakfast time and went straight to the Lion Cub Hotel
where I took to my bed with a high temperature. It was, of course, malaria. I always have
my attacks at the most inopportune times. Fortunately George ran into some friends
called Eccles and the wife Mollie came to my room and bathed Henry and prepared his
bottle and fed him. George looked after John and Jim. Next day I felt much better and
we drove out to Lyamungu the day after. There we had tea with the Game Warden and
his wife before moving into our new home nearby.

The Game Warden is Captain Monty Moore VC. He came out to Africa
originally as an Officer in the King’s African Rifles and liked the country so much he left the
Army and joined the Game Department. He was stationed at Banagi in the Serengetti
Game Reserve and is well known for his work with the lions there. He particularly tamed
some of the lions by feeding them so that they would come out into the open and could
readily be photographed by tourists. His wife Audrey, has written a book about their
experiences at Banagi. It is called “Serengetti”

Our cook, Hamisi, soon had a meal ready for us and we all went to bed early.
This is a very pleasant house and I know we will be happy here. I still feel a little shaky
but that is the result of all the quinine I have taken. I expect I shall feel fine in a day or two.

Eleanor.

Lyamungu 15th May 1944

Dearest Family,

Well, here we are settled comfortably in our very nice house. The house is
modern and roomy, and there is a large enclosed verandah, which will be a Godsend in
the wet weather as a playroom for the children. The only drawback is that there are so
many windows to be curtained and cleaned. The grounds consist of a very large lawn
and a few beds of roses and shrubs. It is an ideal garden for children, unlike our steeply
terraced garden at Morogoro.

Lyamungu is really the Government Coffee Research Station. It is about sixteen
miles from the town of Moshi which is the centre of the Tanganyika coffee growing
industry. Lyamungu, which means ‘place of God’ is in the foothills of Mt Kilimanjaro and
we have a beautiful view of Kilimanjaro. Kibo, the more spectacular of the two mountain
peaks, towers above us, looking from this angle, like a giant frosted plum pudding. Often the mountain is veiled by cloud and mist which sometimes comes down to
our level so that visibility is practically nil. George dislikes both mist and mountain but I
like both and so does John. He in fact saw Kibo before I did. On our first day here, the
peak was completely hidden by cloud. In the late afternoon when the children were
playing on the lawn outside I was indoors hanging curtains. I heard John call out, “Oh
Mummy, isn’t it beautiful!” I ran outside and there, above a scarf of cloud, I saw the
showy dome of Kibo with the setting sun shining on it tingeing the snow pink. It was an
unforgettable experience.

As this is the rainy season, the surrounding country side is very lush and green.
Everywhere one sees the rich green of the coffee plantations and the lighter green of
the banana groves. Unfortunately our walks are rather circumscribed. Except for the main road to Moshi, there is nowhere to walk except through the Government coffee
plantation. Paddy, our dog, thinks life is pretty boring as there is no bush here and
nothing to hunt. There are only half a dozen European families here and half of those are
on very distant terms with the other half which makes the station a rather uncomfortable
one.

The coffee expert who runs this station is annoyed because his European staff
has been cut down owing to the war, and three of the vacant houses and some office
buildings have been taken over temporarily by the Game Department. Another house
has been taken over by the head of the Labour Department. However I don’t suppose
the ill feeling will effect us much. We are so used to living in the bush that we are not
socially inclined any way.

Our cook, Hamisi, came with us from Morogoro but I had to engage a new
houseboy and kitchenboy. I first engaged a houseboy who produced a wonderful ‘chit’
in which his previous employer describes him as his “friend and confidant”. I felt rather
dubious about engaging him and how right I was. On his second day with us I produced
some of Henry’s napkins, previously rinsed by me, and asked this boy to wash them.
He looked most offended and told me that it was beneath his dignity to do women’s
work. We parted immediately with mutual relief.

Now I have a good natured fellow named Japhet who, though hard on crockery,
is prepared to do anything and loves playing with the children. He is a local boy, a
member of the Chagga tribe. These Chagga are most intelligent and, on the whole, well
to do as they all have their own small coffee shambas. Japhet tells me that his son is at
the Uganda University College studying medicine.The kitchen boy is a tall youth called
Tovelo, who helps both Hamisi, the cook, and the houseboy and also keeps an eye on
Henry when I am sewing. I still make all the children’s clothes and my own. Life is
pleasant but dull. George promises that he will take the whole family on safari when
Henry is a little older.

Eleanor.

Lyamungu 18th July 1944

Dearest Family,

Life drifts quietly by at Lyamungu with each day much like the one before – or
they would be, except that the children provide the sort of excitement that prohibits
boredom. Of the three boys our Jim is the best at this. Last week Jim wandered into the
coffee plantation beside our house and chewed some newly spayed berries. Result?
A high temperature and nasty, bloody diarrhoea, so we had to rush him to the hospital at
Moshi for treatment. however he was well again next day and George went off on safari.
That night there was another crisis. As the nights are now very cold, at this high
altitude, we have a large fire lit in the living room and the boy leaves a pile of logs
beside the hearth so that I can replenish the fire when necessary. Well that night I took
Henry off to bed, leaving John and Jim playing in the living room. When their bedtime
came, I called them without leaving the bedroom. When I had tucked John and Jim into
bed, I sat reading a bedtime story as I always do. Suddenly I saw smoke drifting
through the door, and heard a frightening rumbling noise. Japhet rushed in to say that the
lounge chimney was on fire! Picture me, panic on the inside and sweet smile on the
outside, as I picked Henry up and said to the other two, “There’s nothing to be
frightened about chaps, but get up and come outside for a bit.” Stupid of me to be so
heroic because John and Jim were not at all scared but only too delighted at the chance
of rushing about outside in the dark. The fire to them was just a bit of extra fun.

We hurried out to find one boy already on the roof and the other passing up a
brimming bucket of water. Other boys appeared from nowhere and soon cascades of
water were pouring down the chimney. The result was a mountain of smouldering soot
on the hearth and a pool of black water on the living room floor. However the fire was out
and no serious harm done because all the floors here are cement and another stain on
the old rug will hardly be noticed. As the children reluctantly returned to bed John
remarked smugly, “I told Jim not to put all the wood on the fire at once but he wouldn’t
listen.” I might have guessed!

However it was not Jim but John who gave me the worst turn of all this week. As
a treat I decided to take the boys to the river for a picnic tea. The river is not far from our
house but we had never been there before so I took the kitchen boy, Tovelo, to show
us the way. The path is on the level until one is in sight of the river when the bank slopes
steeply down. I decided that it was too steep for the pram so I stopped to lift Henry out
and carry him. When I looked around I saw John running down the slope towards the
river. The stream is not wide but flows swiftly and I had no idea how deep it was. All I
knew was that it was a trout stream. I called for John, “Stop, wait for me!” but he ran on
and made for a rude pole bridge which spanned the river. He started to cross and then,
to my horror, I saw John slip. There was a splash and he disappeared under the water. I
just dumped the baby on the ground, screamed to the boy to mind him and ran madly
down the slope to the river. Suddenly I saw John’s tight fitting felt hat emerge, then his
eyes and nose. I dashed into the water and found, to my intense relief, that it only
reached up to my shoulders but, thank heaven no further. John’s steady eyes watched
me trustingly as I approached him and carried him safely to the bank. He had been
standing on a rock and had not panicked at all though he had to stand up very straight
and tall to keep his nose out of water. I was too proud of him to scold him for
disobedience and too wet anyway.

I made John undress and put on two spare pullovers and wrapped Henry’s
baby blanket round his waist like a sarong. We made a small fire over which I crouched
with literally chattering teeth whilst Tovelo ran home to fetch a coat for me and dry clothes
for John.

Eleanor.

Lyamungu 16th August 1944

Dearest Family,

We have a new bull terrier bitch pup whom we have named Fanny III . So once
more we have a menagerie , the two dogs, two cats Susie and Winnie, and
some pet hens who live in the garage and are a real nuisance.

As John is nearly six I thought it time that he started lessons and wrote off to Dar
es Salaam for the correspondence course. We have had one week of lessons and I am
already in a state of physical and mental exhaustion. John is a most reluctant scholar.
“Why should I learn to read, when you can read to me?” he asks, and “Anyway why
should I read such stupid stuff, ‘Run Rover Run’, and ‘Mother play with baby’ . Who
wants to read about things like that? I don’t.”

He rather likes sums, but the only subject about which he is enthusiastic is
prehistoric history. He laps up information about ‘The Tree Dwellers’, though he is very
sceptical about the existence of such people. “God couldn’t be so silly to make people
so stupid. Fancy living in trees when it is easy to make huts like the natives.” ‘The Tree
Dwellers is a highly imaginative story about a revolting female called Sharptooth and her
offspring called Bodo. I have a very clear mental image of Sharptooth, so it came as a
shock to me and highly amused George when John looked at me reflectively across the
tea table and said, “Mummy I expect Sharptooth looked like you. You have a sharp
tooth too!” I have, my eye teeth are rather sharp, but I hope the resemblance stops
there.

John has an uncomfortably logical mind for a small boy. The other day he was
lying on the lawn staring up at the clouds when he suddenly muttered “I don’t believe it.”
“Believe what?” I asked. “That Jesus is coming on a cloud one day. How can he? The
thick ones always stay high up. What’s he going to do, jump down with a parachute?”
Tovelo, my kitchen boy, announced one evening that his grandmother was in the
kitchen and wished to see me. She was a handsome and sensible Chagga woman who
brought sad news. Her little granddaughter had stumbled backwards into a large cooking
pot of almost boiling maize meal porridge and was ‘ngongwa sana’ (very ill). I grabbed
a large bottle of Picric Acid and a packet of gauze which we keep for these emergencies
and went with her, through coffee shambas and banana groves to her daughter’s house.
Inside the very neat thatched hut the mother sat with the naked child lying face
downwards on her knee. The child’s buttocks and the back of her legs were covered in
huge burst blisters from which a watery pus dripped. It appeared that the accident had
happened on the previous day.

I could see that it was absolutely necessary to clean up the damaged area, and I
suddenly remembered that there was a trained African hospital dresser on the station. I
sent the father to fetch him and whilst the dresser cleaned off the sloughed skin with
forceps and swabs saturated in Picric Acid, I cut the gauze into small squares which I
soaked in the lotion and laid on the cleaned area. I thought the small pieces would be
easier to change especially as the whole of the most tender parts, front and back, were
badly scalded. The child seemed dazed and neither the dresser nor I thought she would
live. I gave her half an aspirin and left three more half tablets to be given four hourly.
Next day she seemed much brighter. I poured more lotion on the gauze
disturbing as few pieces as possible and again the next day and the next. After a week
the skin was healing well and the child eating normally. I am sure she will be all right now.
The new skin is a brilliant red and very shiny but it is pale round the edges of the burnt
area and will I hope later turn brown. The mother never uttered a word of thanks, but the
granny is grateful and today brought the children a bunch of bananas.

Eleanor.

c/o Game Dept. P.O.Moshi. 29th September 1944

Dearest Mummy,

I am so glad that you so enjoyed my last letter with the description of our very
interesting and enjoyable safari through Masailand. You said you would like an even
fuller description of it to pass around amongst the relations, so, to please you, I have
written it out in detail and enclose the result.

We have spent a quiet week after our exertions and all are well here.

Very much love,
Eleanor.

Safari in Masailand

George and I were at tea with our three little boys on the front lawn of our house
in Lyamungu, Northern Tanganyika. It was John’s sixth birthday and he and Jim, a
happy sturdy three year old, and Henry, aged eleven months, were munching the
squares of plain chocolate which rounded off the party, when George said casually
across the table to me, “Could you be ready by the day after tomorrow to go on
safari?” “Me too?” enquired John anxiously, before I had time to reply, and “Me too?”
echoed Jim. “yes, of course I can”, said I to George and “of course you’re coming too”,
to the children who rate a day spent in the bush higher than any other pleasure.
So in the early morning two days later, we started out happily for Masailand in a
three ton Ford lorry loaded to capacity with the five Rushbys, the safari paraphernalia,
drums of petrol and quite a retinue of servants and Game Scouts. George travelling
alone on his monthly safaris, takes only the cook and a couple of Game Scouts, but this was to be a safari de luxe.

Henry and I shared the cab with George who was driving, whilst John and Jim
with the faithful orderly Mabemba beside them to point out the game animals, were
installed upon rolls of bedding in the body of the lorry. The lorry lumbered along, first
through coffee shambas, and then along the main road between Moshi and Arusha.
After half an hour or so, we turned South off the road into a track which crossed the
Sanya Plains and is the beginning of this part of Masailand. Though the dry season was
at its height, and the pasture dry and course, we were soon passing small groups of
game. This area is a Game Sanctuary and the antelope grazed quietly quite undisturbed
by the passing lorry. Here and there zebra stood bunched by the road, a few wild
ostriches stalked jerkily by, and in the distance some wildebeest cavorted around in their
crazy way.

Soon the grasslands gave way to thorn bush, and we saw six fantastically tall
giraffe standing motionless with their heads turned enquiringly towards us. George
stopped the lorry so the children could have a good view of them. John was enchanted
but Jim, alas, was asleep.

At mid day we reached the Kikoletwa River and turned aside to camp. Beside
the river, under huge leafy trees, there was a beautiful camping spot, but the river was
deep and reputed to be full of crocodiles so we passed it by and made our camp
some distance from the river under a tall thorn tree with a flat lacy canopy. All around the
camp lay uprooted trees of similar size that had been pushed over by elephants. As
soon as the lorry stopped a camp chair was set up for me and the Game Scouts quickly
slashed down grass and cleared the camp site of thorns. The same boys then pitched the tent whilst George himself set up the three camp beds and the folding cot for Henry,
and set up the safari table and the canvas wash bowl and bath.

The cook in the meantime had cleared a cool spot for the kitchen , opened up the
chop boxes and started a fire. The cook’s boy and the dhobi (laundry boy) brought
water from the rather muddy river and tea was served followed shortly afterward by an
excellent lunch. In a very short time the camp had a suprisingly homely look. Nappies
fluttered from a clothes line, Henry slept peacefully in his cot, John and Jim sprawled on
one bed looking at comics, and I dozed comfortably on another.

George, with the Game Scouts, drove off in the lorry about his work. As a Game
Ranger it is his business to be on a constant look out for poachers, both African and
European, and for disease in game which might infect the valuable herds of Masai cattle.
The lorry did not return until dusk by which time the children had bathed enthusiastically in
the canvas bath and were ready for supper and bed. George backed the lorry at right
angles to the tent, Henry’s cot and two camp beds were set up in the lorry, the tarpaulin
was lashed down and the children put to bed in their novel nursery.

When darkness fell a large fire was lit in front of the camp, the exited children at
last fell asleep and George and I sat on by the fire enjoying the cool and quiet night.
When the fire subsided into a bed of glowing coals, it was time for our bed. During the
night I was awakened by the sound of breaking branches and strange indescribable
noises.” Just elephant”, said George comfortably and instantly fell asleep once more. I
didn’t! We rose with the birds next morning, but breakfast was ready and in a
remarkably short time the lorry had been reloaded and we were once more on our way.
For about half a mile we made our own track across the plain and then we turned
into the earth road once more. Soon we had reached the river and were looking with
dismay at the suspension bridge which we had to cross. At the far side, one steel
hawser was missing and there the bridge tilted dangerously. There was no handrail but
only heavy wooden posts which marked the extremities of the bridge. WhenGeorge
measured the distance between the posts he found that there could be barely two
inches to spare on either side of the cumbersome lorry.

He decided to risk crossing, but the children and I and all the servants were told to
cross the bridge and go down the track out of sight. The Game Scouts remained on the
river bank on the far side of the bridge and stood ready for emergencies. As I walked
along anxiously listening, I was horrified to hear the lorry come to a stop on the bridge.
There was a loud creaking noise and I instantly visualised the lorry slowly toppling over
into the deep crocodile infested river. The engine restarted, the lorry crossed the bridge
and came slowly into sight around the bend. My heart slid back into its normal position.
George was as imperturbable as ever and simply remarked that it had been a near
thing and that we would return to Lyamungu by another route.

Beyond the green river belt the very rutted track ran through very uninteresting
thorn bush country. Henry was bored and tiresome, jumping up and down on my knee
and yelling furiously. “Teeth”, said I apologetically to George, rashly handing a match
box to Henry to keep him quiet. No use at all! With a fat finger he poked out the tray
spilling the matches all over me and the floor. Within seconds Henry had torn the
matchbox to pieces with his teeth and flung the battered remains through the window.
An empty cigarette box met with the same fate as the match box and the yells
continued unabated until Henry slept from sheer exhaustion. George gave me a smile,
half sympathetic and half sardonic, “Enjoying the safari, my love?” he enquired. On these
trying occasions George has the inestimable advantage of being able to go into a Yogilike
trance, whereas I become irritated to screaming point.

In an effort to prolong Henry’s slumber I braced my feet against the floor boards
and tried to turn myself into a human shock absorber as we lurched along the eroded
track. Several times my head made contact with the bolt of a rifle in the rack above, and
once I felt I had shattered my knee cap against the fire extinguisher in a bracket under the
dash board.

Strange as it may seem, I really was enjoying the trip in spite of these
discomforts. At last after three years I was once more on safari with George. This type of
country was new to me and there was so much to see We passed a family of giraffe
standing in complete immobility only a few yards from the track. Little dick-dick. one of the smallest of the antelope, scuttled in pairs across the road and that afternoon I had my first view of Gerenuk, curious red brown antelope with extremely elongated legs and giraffe-like necks.

Most interesting of all was my first sight of Masai at home. We could hear a tuneful
jangle of cattle bells and suddenly came across herds of humped cattle browsing upon
the thorn bushes. The herds were guarded by athletic,striking looking Masai youths and men.
Each had a calabash of water slung over his shoulder and a tall, highly polished spear in his
hand. These herdsmen were quite unselfconscious though they wore no clothing except for one carelessly draped blanket. Very few gave us any greeting but glanced indifferently at us from under fringes of clay-daubed plaited hair . The rest of their hair was drawn back behind the ears to display split earlobes stretched into slender loops by the weight of heavy brass or copper tribal ear rings.

Most of the villages were set well back in the bush out of sight of the road but we did pass one
typical village which looked most primitive indeed. It consisted simply of a few mound like mud huts which were entirely covered with a plaster of mud and cattle dung and the whole clutch of huts were surrounded by a ‘boma’ of thorn to keep the cattle in at night and the lions out. There was a gathering of women and children on the road at this point. The children of both sexes were naked and unadorned, but the women looked very fine indeed. This is not surprising for they have little to do but adorn themselves, unlike their counterparts of other tribes who have to work hard cultivating the fields. The Masai women, and others I saw on safari, were far more amiable and cheerful looking than the men and were well proportioned.

They wore skirts of dressed goat skin, knee length in front but ankle length behind. Their arms
from elbow to wrist, and legs from knee to ankle, were encased in tight coils of copper and
galvanised wire. All had their heads shaved and in some cases bound by a leather band
embroidered in red white and blue beads. Circular ear rings hung from slit earlobes and their
handsome throats were encircled by stiff wire necklaces strung with brightly coloured beads. These
necklaces were carefully graded in size and formed deep collars almost covering their breasts.
About a quarter of a mile further along the road we met eleven young braves in gala attire, obviously on their way to call on the girls. They formed a line across the road and danced up and down until the lorry was dangerously near when they parted and grinned cheerfully at us. These were the only cheerful
looking male Masai that I saw. Like the herdsmen these youths wore only a blanket, but their
blankets were ochre colour, and elegantly draped over their backs. Their naked bodies gleamed with oil. Several had painted white stripes on their faces, and two had whitewashed their faces entirely which I
thought a pity. All had their long hair elaborately dressed and some carried not only one,
but two gleaming spears.

By mid day George decided that we had driven far enough for that day. He
stopped the lorry and consulted a rather unreliable map. “Somewhere near here is a
place called Lolbeni,” he said. “The name means Sweet Water, I hear that the
government have piped spring water down from the mountain into a small dam at which
the Masai water their cattle.” Lolbeni sounded pleasant to me. Henry was dusty and
cross, the rubber sheet had long slipped from my lap to the floor and I was conscious of
a very damp lap. ‘Sweet Waters’ I felt, would put all that right. A few hundred yards
away a small herd of cattle was grazing, so George lit his pipe and relaxed at last, whilst
a Game Scout went off to find the herdsman. The scout soon returned with an ancient
and emaciated Masai who was thrilled at the prospect of his first ride in a lorry and
offered to direct us to Lolbeni which was off the main track and about four miles away.

Once Lolbeni had been a small administrative post and a good track had
led to it, but now the Post had been abandoned and the road is dotted with vigourous
thorn bushes and the branches of larger thorn trees encroach on the track The road had
deteriorated to a mere cattle track, deeply rutted and eroded by heavy rains over a
period of years. The great Ford truck, however, could take it. It lurched victoriously along,
mowing down the obstructions, tearing off branches from encroaching thorn trees with its
high railed sides, spanning gorges in the track, and climbing in and out of those too wide
to span. I felt an army tank could not have done better.

I had expected Lolbeni to be a green oasis in a desert of grey thorns, but I was
quickly disillusioned. To be sure the thorn trees were larger and more widely spaced and
provided welcome shade, but the ground under the trees had been trampled by thousands of cattle into a dreary expanse of dirty grey sand liberally dotted with cattle droppings and made still more uninviting by the bleached bones of dead beasts.

To the right of this waste rose a high green hill which gave the place its name and from which
the precious water was piped, but its slopes were too steep to provide a camping site.
Flies swarmed everywhere and I was most relieved when George said that we would
stay only long enough to fill our cans with water. Even the water was a disappointment!
The water in the small dam was low and covered by a revolting green scum, and though
the water in the feeding pipe was sweet, it trickled so feebly that it took simply ages to
fill a four gallon can.

However all these disappointments were soon forgotten for we drove away
from the flies and dirt and trampled sand and soon, with their quiet efficiency, George
and his men set up a comfortable camp. John and Jim immediately started digging
operations in the sandy soil whilst Henry and I rested. After tea George took his shot
gun and went off to shoot guinea fowl and partridges for the pot. The children and I went
walking, keeping well in site of camp, and soon we saw a very large flock of Vulturine
Guineafowl, running aimlessly about and looking as tame as barnyard fowls, but melting
away as soon as we moved in their direction.

We had our second quiet and lovely evening by the camp fire, followed by a
peaceful night.

We left Lolbeni very early next morning, which was a good thing, for as we left
camp the herds of thirsty cattle moved in from all directions. They were accompanied by
Masai herdsmen, their naked bodies and blankets now covered by volcanic dust which
was being stirred in rising clouds of stifling ash by the milling cattle, and also by grey
donkeys laden with panniers filled with corked calabashes for water.

Our next stop was Nabarera, a Masai cattle market and trading centre, where we
reluctantly stayed for two days in a pokey Goverment Resthouse because George had
a job to do in that area. The rest was good for Henry who promptly produced a tooth
and was consequently much better behaved for the rest of the trip. George was away in the bush most of the day but he returned for afternoon tea and later took the children out
walking. We had noticed curious white dumps about a quarter mile from the resthouse
and on the second afternoon we set out to investigate them. Behind the dumps we
found passages about six foot wide, cut through solid limestone. We explored two of
these and found that both passages led steeply down to circular wells about two and a
half feet in diameter.

At the very foot of each passage, beside each well, rough drinking troughs had
been cut in the stone. The herdsmen haul the water out of the well in home made hide
buckets, the troughs are filled and the cattle driven down the ramps to drink at the trough.
It was obvious that the wells were ancient and the sloping passages new. George tells
me that no one knows what ancient race dug the original wells. It seems incredible that
these deep and narrow shafts could have been sunk without machinery. I craned my
neck and looked above one well and could see an immensely long shaft reaching up to
ground level. Small footholds were cut in the solid rock as far as I could see.
It seems that the Masai are as ignorant as ourselves about the origin of these
wells. They do say however that when their forebears first occupied what is now known
as Masailand, they not only found the Wanderobo tribe in the area but also a light
skinned people and they think it possible that these light skinned people dug the wells.
These people disappeared. They may have been absorbed or, more likely, they were
liquidated.

The Masai had found the well impractical in their original form and had hired
labourers from neighbouring tribes to cut the passages to water level. Certainly the Masai are not responsible for the wells. They are a purely pastoral people and consider manual labour extremely degrading.

They live chiefly on milk from their herd which they allow to go sour, and mix with blood that has been skilfully tapped from the necks of living cattle. They do not eat game meat, nor do they cultivate any
land. They hunt with spears, but hunt only lions, to protect their herds, and to test the skill
and bravery of their young warriors. What little grain they do eat is transported into
Masailand by traders. The next stage of our journey took us to Ngassamet where
George was to pick up some elephant tusks. I had looked forward particularly to this
stretch of road for I had heard that there was a shallow lake at which game congregates,
and at which I had great hopes of seeing elephants. We had come too late in the
season though, the lake was dry and there were only piles of elephant droppings to
prove that elephant had recently been there in numbers. Ngassamet, though no beauty
spot, was interesting. We saw more elaborate editions of the wells already described, and as this area
is rich in cattle we saw the aristocrats of the Masai. You cannot conceive of a more arrogant looking male than a young Masai brave striding by on sandalled feet, unselfconscious in all his glory. All the young men wore the casually draped traditional ochre blanket and carried one or more spears. But here belts and long knife sheaths of scarlet leather seem to be the fashion. Here fringes do not seem to be the thing. Most of these young Masai had their hair drawn smoothly back and twisted in a pointed queue, the whole plastered with a smooth coating of red clay. Some tied their horn shaped queues over their heads
so that the tip formed a deep Satanic peak on the brow. All these young men wore the traditional
copper earrings and I saw one or two with copper bracelets and one with a necklace of brightly coloured
beads.

It so happened that, on the day of our visit to Ngassamet, there had been a
baraza (meeting) which was attended by all the local headmen and elders. These old
men came to pay their respects to George and a more shrewd and rascally looking
company I have never seen, George told me that some of these men own up to three
thousand head of cattle and more. The chief was as fat and Rabelasian as his second in
command was emaciated, bucktoothed and prim. The Chief shook hands with George
and greeted me and settled himself on the wall of the resthouse porch opposite
George. The lesser headmen, after politely greeting us, grouped themselves in a
semi circle below the steps with their ‘aides’ respectfully standing behind them. I
remained sitting in the only chair and watched the proceedings with interest and
amusement.

These old Masai, I noticed, cared nothing for adornment. They had proved
themselves as warriors in the past and were known to be wealthy and influential so did
not need to make any display. Most of them had their heads comfortably shaved and
wore only a drab blanket or goatskin cloak. Their only ornaments were earrings whose
effect was somewhat marred by the serviceable and homely large safety pin that
dangled from the lobe of one ear. All carried staves instead of spears and all, except for
Buckteeth and one blind old skeleton of a man, appeared to have a keenly developed
sense of humour.

“Mummy?” asked John in an urgent whisper, “Is that old blind man nearly dead?”
“Yes dear”, said I, “I expect he’ll soon die.” “What here?” breathed John in a tone of
keen anticipation and, until the meeting broke up and the old man left, he had John’s
undivided attention.

After local news and the game situation had been discussed, the talk turned to the
war. “When will the war end?” moaned the fat Chief. “We have made great gifts of cattle
to the War Funds, we are taxed out of existence.” George replied with the Ki-Swahili
equivalent of ‘Sez you!’. This sally was received with laughter and the old fellows rose to
go. They made their farewells and dignified exits, pausing on their way to stare at our
pink and white Henry, who sat undismayed in his push chair giving them stare for stare
from his striking grey eyes.

Towards evening some Masai, prompted no doubt by our native servants,
brought a sheep for sale. It was the last night of the fast of Ramadan and our
Mohammedan boys hoped to feast next day at our expense. Their faces fell when
George refused to buy the animal. “Why should I pay fifteen shillings for a sheep?” he
asked, “Am I not the Bwana Nyama and is not the bush full of my sheep?” (Bwana
Nyama is the native name for a Game Ranger, but means literally, ‘Master of the meat’)
George meant that he would shoot a buck for the men next day, but this incident was to
have a strange sequel. Ngassamet resthouse consists of one room so small we could
not put up all our camp beds and George and I slept on the cement floor which was
unkind to my curves. The night was bitterly cold and all night long hyaenas screeched
hideously outside. So we rose at dawn without reluctance and were on our way before it
was properly light.

George had decided that it would be foolhardy to return home by our outward
route as he did not care to risk another crossing of the suspension bridge. So we
returned to Nabarera and there turned onto a little used track which would eventually take
us to the Great North Road a few miles South of Arusha. There was not much game
about but I saw Oryx which I had not previously seen. Soon it grew intolerably hot and I
think all of us but George were dozing when he suddenly stopped the lorry and pointed
to the right. “Mpishi”, he called to the cook, “There’s your sheep!” True enough, on that
dreary thorn covered plain,with not another living thing in sight, stood a fat black sheep.

There was an incredulous babbling from the back of the lorry. Every native
jumped to the ground and in no time at all the wretched sheep was caught and
slaughtered. I felt sick. “Oh George”, I wailed, “The poor lost sheep! I shan’t eat a scrap
of it.” George said nothing but went and had a look at the sheep and called out to me,
“Come and look at it. It was kindness to kill the poor thing, the vultures have been at it
already and the hyaenas would have got it tonight.” I went reluctantly and saw one eye
horribly torn out, and small deep wounds on the sheep’s back where the beaks of the
vultures had cut through the heavy fleece. Poor thing! I went back to the lorry more
determined than ever not to eat mutton on that trip. The Scouts and servants had no
such scruples. The fine fat sheep had been sent by Allah for their feast day and that was
the end of it.

“ ‘Mpishi’ is more convinced than ever that I am a wizard”, said George in
amusement as he started the lorry. I knew what he meant. Several times before George
had foretold something which had later happened. Pure coincidence, but strange enough
to give rise to a legend that George had the power to arrange things. “What happened
of course”, explained George, “Is that a flock of Masai sheep was driven to market along
this track yesterday or the day before. This one strayed and was not missed.”

The day grew hotter and hotter and for long miles we looked out for a camping
spot but could find little shade and no trace of water anywhere. At last, in the early
afternoon we reached another pokey little rest house and asked for water. “There is no
water here,” said the native caretaker. “Early in the morning there is water in a well nearby
but we are allowed only one kerosene tin full and by ten o’clock the well is dry.” I looked
at George in dismay for we were all so tired and dusty. “Where do the Masai from the
village water their cattle then?” asked George. “About two miles away through the bush.
If you take me with you I shall show you”, replied the native.

So we turned off into the bush and followed a cattle track even more tortuous than
the one to Lolbeni. Two Scouts walked ahead to warn us of hazards and I stretched my
arm across the open window to fend off thorns. Henry screamed with fright and hunger.
But George’s efforts to reach water went unrewarded as we were brought to a stop by
a deep donga. The native from the resthouse was apologetic. He had mistaken the
path, perhaps if we turned back we might find it. George was beyond speech. We
lurched back the way we had come and made our camp under the first large tree we
could find. Then off went our camp boys on foot to return just before dark with the water.
However they were cheerful for there was an unlimited quantity of dry wood for their fires
and meat in plenty for their feast. Long after George and I left our campfire and had gone
to bed, we could see the cheerful fires of the boys and hear their chatter and laughter.
I woke in the small hours to hear the insane cackling of hyaenas gloating over a
find. Later I heard scuffling around the camp table, I peered over the tailboard of the lorry
and saw George come out of his tent. What are you doing?” I whispered. “Looking for
something to throw at those bloody hyaenas,” answered George for all the world as
though those big brutes were tomcats on the prowl. Though the hyaenas kept up their
concert all night the children never stirred, nor did any of them wake at night throughout
the safari.

Early next morning I walked across to the camp kitchen to enquire into the loud
lamentations coming from that quarter. “Oh Memsahib”, moaned the cook, “We could
not sleep last night for the bad hyaenas round our tents. They have taken every scrap of
meat we had left over from the feast., even the meat we had left to smoke over the fire.”
Jim, who of our three young sons is the cook’s favourite commiserated with him. He said
in Ki-Swahili, which he speaks with great fluency, “Truly those hyaenas are very bad
creatures. They also robbed us. They have taken my hat from the table and eaten the
new soap from the washbowl.

Our last day in the bush was a pleasantly lazy one. We drove through country
that grew more open and less dry as we approached Arusha. We pitched our camp
near a large dam, and the water was a blessed sight after a week of scorched country.
On the plains to the right of our camp was a vast herd of native cattle enjoying a brief
rest after their long day trek through Masailand. They were destined to walk many more
weary miles before reaching their destination, a meat canning factory in Kenya.
The ground to the left of the camp rose gently to form a long low hill and on the
grassy slopes we could see wild ostriches and herds of wildebeest, zebra and
antelope grazing amicably side by side. In the late afternoon I watched the groups of
zebra and wildebeest merge into one. Then with a wildebeest leading, they walked
down the slope in single file to drink at the vlei . When they were satisfied, a wildebeest
once more led the herd up the trail. The others followed in a long and orderly file, and
vanished over the hill to their evening pasture.

When they had gone, George took up his shotgun and invited John to
accompany him to the dam to shoot duck. This was the first time John had acted as
retriever but he did very well and proudly helped to carry a mixed bag of sand grouse
and duck back to camp.

Next morning we turned into the Great North Road and passed first through
carefully tended coffee shambas and then through the township of Arusha, nestling at
the foot of towering Mount Meru. Beyond Arusha we drove through the Usa River
settlement where again coffee shambas and European homesteads line the road, and
saw before us the magnificent spectacle of Kilimanjaro unveiled, its white snow cap
gleaming in the sunlight. Before mid day we were home. “Well was it worth it?” enquired
George at lunch. “Lovely,” I replied. ”Let’s go again soon.” Then thinking regretfully of
our absent children I sighed, “If only Ann, George, and Kate could have gone with us
too.”

Lyamungu 10th November. 1944

Dearest Family.

Mummy wants to know how I fill in my time with George away on safari for weeks
on end. I do believe that you all picture me idling away my days, waited on hand and
foot by efficient servants! On the contrary, life is one rush and the days never long
enough.

To begin with, our servants are anything but efficient, apart from our cook, Hamisi
Issa, who really is competent. He suffers from frustration because our budget will not run
to elaborate dishes so there is little scope for his culinary art. There is one masterpiece
which is much appreciated by John and Jim. Hamisi makes a most realistic crocodile out
of pastry and stuffs its innards with minced meat. This revolting reptile is served on a
bed of parsley on my largest meat dish. The cook is a strict Mohammedan and
observes all the fasts and daily prayers and, like all Mohammedans he is very clean in
his person and, thank goodness, in the kitchen.

His wife is his pride and joy but not his helpmate. She does absolutely nothing
but sit in a chair in the sun all day, sipping tea and smoking cigarettes – a more
expensive brand than mine! It is Hamisi who sweeps out their quarters, cooks
delectable curries for her, and spends more than he can afford on clothing and trinkets for
his wife. She just sits there with her ‘Mona Lisa’ smile and her painted finger and toe
nails, doing absolutely nothing.

The thing is that natives despise women who do work and this applies especially
to their white employers. House servants much prefer a Memsahib who leaves
everything to them and is careless about locking up her pantry. When we first came to
Lyamungu I had great difficulty in employing a houseboy. A couple of rather efficient
ones did approach me but when they heard the wages I was prepared to pay and that
there was no number 2 boy, they simply were not interested. Eventually I took on a
local boy called Japhet who suits me very well except that his sight is not good and he
is extremely hard on the crockery. He tells me that he has lost face by working here
because his friends say that he works for a family that is too mean to employ a second
boy. I explained that with our large family we simply cannot afford to pay more, but this
didn’t register at all. Japhet says “But Wazungu (Europeans) all have money. They just
have to get it from the Bank.”

The third member of our staff is a strapping youth named Tovelo who helps both
cook and boy, and consequently works harder than either. What do I do? I chivvy the
servants, look after the children, supervise John’s lessons, and make all my clothing and
the children’s on that blessed old hand sewing machine.

The folk on this station entertain a good deal but we usually decline invitations
because we simply cannot afford to reciprocate. However, last Saturday night I invited
two couples to drinks and dinner. This was such an unusual event that the servants and I
were thrown into a flurry. In the end the dinner went off well though it ended in disaster. In
spite of my entreaties and exhortations to Japhet not to pile everything onto the tray at
once when clearing the table, he did just that. We were starting our desert and I was
congratulating myself that all had gone well when there was a frightful crash of breaking
china on the back verandah. I excused myself and got up to investigate. A large meat
dish, six dinner plates and four vegetable dishes lay shattered on the cement floor! I
controlled my tongue but what my eyes said to Japhet is another matter. What he said
was, “It is not my fault Memsahib. The handle of the tray came off.”

It is a curious thing about native servants that they never accept responsibility for
a mishap. If they cannot pin their misdeeds onto one of their fellow servants then the responsibility rests with God. ‘Shauri ya Mungu’, (an act of God) is a familiar cry. Fatalists
can be very exasperating employees.

The loss of my dinner service is a real tragedy because, being war time, one can
buy only china of the poorest quality made for the native trade. Nor was that the final
disaster of the evening. When we moved to the lounge for coffee I noticed that the
coffee had been served in the battered old safari coffee pot instead of the charming little
antique coffee pot which my Mother-in-law had sent for our tenth wedding anniversary.
As there had already been a disturbance I made no comment but resolved to give the
cook a piece of my mind in the morning. My instructions to the cook had been to warm
the coffee pot with hot water immediately before serving. On no account was he to put
the pewter pot on the hot iron stove. He did and the result was a small hole in the base
of the pot – or so he says. When I saw the pot next morning there was a two inch hole in
it.

Hamisi explained placidly how this had come about. He said he knew I would be
mad when I saw the little hole so he thought he would have it mended and I might not
notice it. Early in the morning he had taken the pewter pot to the mechanic who looks
after the Game Department vehicles and had asked him to repair it. The bright individual
got busy with the soldering iron with the most devastating result. “It’s his fault,” said
Hamisi, “He is a mechanic, he should have known what would happen.”
One thing is certain, there will be no more dinner parties in this house until the war
is ended.

The children are well and so am I, and so was George when he left on his safari
last Monday.

Much love,
Eleanor.

 

From Tanganyika with Love

continued  ~ part 4

With thanks to Mike Rushby.

Mchewe Estate. 31st January 1936

Dearest Family,

Life is very quiet just now. Our neighbours have left and I miss them all especially
Joni who was always a great bearer of news. We also grew fond of his Swedish
brother-in-law Max, whose loud ‘Hodi’ always brought a glad ‘Karibu’ from us. His wife,
Marion, I saw less often. She is not strong and seldom went visiting but has always
been friendly and kind and ready to share her books with me.

Ann’s birthday is looming ahead and I am getting dreadfully anxious that her
parcels do not arrive in time. I am delighted that you were able to get a good head for
her doll, dad, but horrified to hear that it was so expensive. You would love your
‘Charming Ann’. She is a most responsible little soul and seems to have outgrown her
mischievous ways. A pity in a way, I don’t want her to grow too serious. You should see
how thoroughly Ann baths and towels herself. She is anxious to do Georgie and Kate
as well.

I did not mean to teach Ann to write until after her fifth birthday but she has taught
herself by copying the large print in newspaper headlines. She would draw a letter and
ask me the name and now I find that at four Ann knows the whole alphabet. The front
cement steps is her favourite writing spot. She uses bits of white clay we use here for
whitewashing.

Coffee prices are still very low and a lot of planters here and at Mbosi are in a
mess as they can no longer raise mortgages on their farms or get advances from the
Bank against their crops. We hear many are leaving their farms to try their luck on the
Diggings.

George is getting fed up too. The snails are back on the shamba and doing
frightful damage. Talk of the plagues of Egypt! Once more they are being collected in
piles and bashed into pulp. The stench on the shamba is frightful! The greybeards in the
village tell George that the local Chief has put a curse on the farm because he is angry
that the Government granted George a small extension to the farm two years ago! As
the Chief was consulted at the time and was agreeable this talk of a curse is nonsense
but goes to show how the uneducated African put all disasters down to witchcraft.

With much love,
Eleanor.

Mchewe Estate. 9th February 1936

Dearest Family,

Ann’s birthday yesterday was not quite the gay occasion we had hoped. The
seventh was mail day so we sent a runner for the mail, hoping against hope that your
parcel containing the dolls head had arrived. The runner left for Mbeya at dawn but, as it
was a very wet day, he did not return with the mail bag until after dark by which time Ann
was fast asleep. My heart sank when I saw the parcel which contained the dolls new
head. It was squashed quite flat. I shed a few tears over that shattered head, broken
quite beyond repair, and George felt as bad about it as I did. The other parcel arrived in
good shape and Ann loves her little sewing set, especially the thimble, and the nursery
rhymes are a great success.

Ann woke early yesterday and began to open her parcels. She said “But
Mummy, didn’t Barbara’s new head come?” So I had to show her the fragments.
Instead of shedding the flood of tears I expected, Ann just lifted the glass eyes in her
hand and said in a tight little voice “Oh poor Barbara.” George saved the situation. as
usual, by saying in a normal voice,”Come on Ann, get up and lets play your new
records.” So we had music and sweets before breakfast. Later I removed Barbara’s
faded old blond wig and gummed on the glossy new brown one and Ann seems quite
satisfied.

Last night, after the children were tucked up in bed, we discussed our financial
situation. The coffee trees that have survived the plagues of borer beetle, mealie bugs
and snails look strong and fine, but George says it will be years before we make a living
out of the farm. He says he will simply have to make some money and he is leaving for
the Lupa on Saturday to have a look around on the Diggings. If he does decide to peg
a claim and work it he will put up a wattle and daub hut and the children and I will join him
there. But until such time as he strikes gold I shall have to remain here on the farm and
‘Keep the Home Fires Burning’.

Now don’t go and waste pity on me. Women all over the country are having to
stay at home whilst their husbands search for a livelihood. I am better off than most
because I have a comfortable little home and loyal servants and we still have enough
capitol to keep the wolf from the door. Anyway this is the rainy season and hardly the
best time to drag three small children around the sodden countryside on prospecting
safaris.

So I’ll stay here at home and hold thumbs that George makes a lucky strike.

Heaps of love to all,
Eleanor.

Mchewe Estate. 27th February 1936

Dearest Family,

Well, George has gone but here we are quite safe and cosy. Kate is asleep and
Ann and Georgie are sprawled on the couch taking it in turns to enumerate the things
God has made. Every now and again Ann bothers me with an awkward question. “Did
God make spiders? Well what for? Did he make weeds? Isn’t He silly, mummy? She is
becoming a very practical person. She sews surprisingly well for a four year old and has
twice made cakes in the past week, very sweet and liberally coloured with cochineal and
much appreciated by Georgie.

I have been without George for a fortnight and have adapted myself to my new
life. The children are great company during the day and I have arranged my evenings so
that they do not seem long. I am determined that when George comes home he will find
a transformed wife. I read an article entitled ‘Are you the girl he married?’ in a magazine
last week and took a good look in the mirror and decided that I certainly was not! Hair dry,
skin dry, and I fear, a faint shadow on the upper lip. So now I have blown the whole of
your Christmas Money Order on an order to a chemist in Dar es Salaam for hair tonic,
face cream and hair remover and am anxiously awaiting the parcel.

In the meantime, after tucking the children into bed at night, I skip on the verandah
and do the series of exercises recommended in the magazine article. After this exertion I
have a leisurely bath followed by a light supper and then read or write letters to pass
the time until Kate’s ten o’clock feed. I have arranged for Janey to sleep in the house.
She comes in at 9.30 pm and makes up her bed on the living room floor by the fire.

The days are by no means uneventful. The day before yesterday the biggest
troop of monkeys I have ever seen came fooling around in the trees and on the grass
only a few yards from the house. These monkeys were the common grey monkeys
with black faces. They came in all sizes and were most entertaining to watch. Ann and
Georgie had a great time copying their antics and pulling faces at the monkeys through
the bedroom windows which I hastily closed.

Thomas, our headman, came running up and told me that this troop of monkeys
had just raided his maize shamba and asked me to shoot some of them. I would not of
course do this. I still cannot bear to kill any animal, but I fired a couple of shots in the air
and the monkeys just melted away. It was fantastic, one moment they were there and
the next they were not. Ann and Georgie thought I had been very unkind to frighten the
poor monkeys but honestly, when I saw what they had done to my flower garden, I
almost wished I had hardened my heart and shot one or two.

The children are all well but Ann gave me a nasty fright last week. I left Ann and
Georgie at breakfast whilst I fed Fanny, our bull terrier on the back verandah. Suddenly I
heard a crash and rushed inside to find Ann’s chair lying on its back and Ann beside it on
the floor perfectly still and with a paper white face. I shouted for Janey to bring water and
laid Ann flat on the couch and bathed her head and hands. Soon she sat up with a wan
smile and said “I nearly knocked my head off that time, didn’t I.” She must have been
standing on the chair and leaning against the back. Our brick floors are so terribly hard that
she might have been seriously hurt.

However she was none the worse for the fall, but Heavens, what an anxiety kids
are.

Lots of love,
Eleanor

Mchewe Estate. 12th March 1936

Dearest Family,

It was marvellous of you to send another money order to replace the one I spent
on cosmetics. With this one I intend to order boots for both children as a protection from
snake bite, though from my experience this past week the threat seems to be to the
head rather than the feet. I was sitting on the couch giving Kate her morning milk from a
cup when a long thin snake fell through the reed ceiling and landed with a thud just behind
the couch. I shouted “Nyoka, Nyoka!” (Snake,Snake!) and the houseboy rushed in with
a stick and killed the snake. I then held the cup to Kate’s mouth again but I suppose in
my agitation I tipped it too much because the baby choked badly. She gasped for
breath. I quickly gave her a sharp smack on the back and a stream of milk gushed
through her mouth and nostrils and over me. Janey took Kate from me and carried her
out into the fresh air on the verandah and as I anxiously followed her through the door,
another long snake fell from the top of the wall just missing me by an inch or so. Luckily
the houseboy still had the stick handy and dispatched this snake also.

The snakes were a pair of ‘boomslangs’, not nice at all, and all day long I have
had shamba boys coming along to touch hands and say “Poli Memsahib” – “Sorry
madam”, meaning of course ‘Sorry you had a fright.’

Apart from that one hectic morning this has been a quiet week. Before George
left for the Lupa he paid off most of the farm hands as we can now only afford a few
labourers for the essential work such as keeping the weeds down in the coffee shamba.
There is now no one to keep the grass on the farm roads cut so we cannot use the pram
when we go on our afternoon walks. Instead Janey carries Kate in a sling on her back.
Janey is a very clean slim woman, and her clothes are always spotless, so Kate keeps
cool and comfortable. Ann and Georgie always wear thick overalls on our walks as a
protection against thorns and possible snakes. We usually make our way to the
Mchewe River where Ann and Georgie paddle in the clear cold water and collect shiny
stones.

The cosmetics parcel duly arrived by post from Dar es Salaam so now I fill the
evenings between supper and bed time attending to my face! The much advertised
cream is pink and thick and feels revolting. I smooth it on before bedtime and keep it on
all night. Just imagine if George could see me! The advertisements promise me a skin
like a rose in six weeks. What a surprise there is in store for George!

You will have been wondering what has happened to George. Well on the Lupa
he heard rumours of a new gold strike somewhere in the Sumbawanga District. A couple
of hundred miles from here I think, though I am not sure where it is and have no one to
ask. You look it up on the map and tell me. John Molteno is also interested in this and
anxious to have it confirmed so he and George have come to an agreement. John
Molteno provided the porters for the journey together with prospecting tools and
supplies but as he cannot leave his claims, or his gold buying business, George is to go
on foot to the area of the rumoured gold strike and, if the strike looks promising will peg
claims in both their names.

The rainy season is now at its height and the whole countryside is under water. All
roads leading to the area are closed to traffic and, as there are few Europeans who
would attempt the journey on foot, George proposes to get a head start on them by
making this uncomfortable safari. I have just had my first letter from George since he left
on this prospecting trip. It took ages to reach me because it was sent by runner to
Abercorn in Northern Rhodesia, then on by lorry to Mpika where it was put on a plane
for Mbeya. George writes the most charming letters which console me a little upon our
all too frequent separations.

His letter was cheerful and optimistic, though reading between the lines I should
say he had a grim time. He has reached Sumbawanga after ‘a hell of a trip’, to find that
the rumoured strike was at Mpanda and he had a few more days of foot safari ahead.
He had found the trip from the Lupa even wetter than he had expected. The party had
three days of wading through swamps sometimes waist deep in water. Of his sixteen
porters, four deserted an the second day out and five others have had malaria and so
been unable to carry their loads. He himself is ‘thin but very fit’, and he sounds full of
beans and writes gaily of the marvellous holiday we will have if he has any decent luck! I
simply must get that mink and diamonds complexion.

The frustrating thing is that I cannot write back as I have no idea where George is
now.

With heaps of love,
Eleanor.

Mchewe Estate. 24th March 1936

Dearest Family,
How kind you are. Another parcel from home. Although we are very short
of labourers I sent a special runner to fetch it as Ann simply couldn’t bear the suspense
of waiting to see Brenda, “My new little girl with plaits.” Thank goodness Brenda is
unbreakable. I could not have born another tragedy. She really is an exquisite little doll
and has hardly been out of Ann’s arms since arrival. She showed Brenda proudly to all
the staff. The kitchen boy’s face was a study. His eyes fairly came out on sticks when he
saw the dolls eyes not only opening and shutting, but moving from side to side in that
incredibly lifelike way. Georgie loves his little model cars which he carries around all day
and puts under his pillow at night.

As for me, I am enchanted by my very smart new frock. Janey was so lavish with
her compliments when I tried the frock on, that in a burst of generosity I gave her that
rather tartish satin and lace trousseau nighty, and she was positively enthralled. She
wore it that very night when she appeared as usual to doss down by the fire.
By the way it was Janey’s turn to have a fright this week. She was in the
bathroom washing the children’s clothes in an outsize hand basin when it happened. As
she took Georgie’s overalls from the laundry basket a large centipede ran up her bare
arm. Luckily she managed to knock the centipede off into the hot water in the hand basin.
It was a brute, about six inches long of viciousness with a nasty sting. The locals say that
the bite is much worse than a scorpions so Janey had a lucky escape.

Kate cut her first two teeth yesterday and will, I hope, sleep better now. I don’t
feel that pink skin food is getting a fair trial with all those broken nights. There is certainly
no sign yet of ‘The skin he loves to touch”. Kate, I may say, is rosy and blooming. She
can pull herself upright providing she has something solid to hold on to. She is so plump
I have horrible visions of future bow legs so I push her down, but she always bobs up
again.

Both Ann and Georgie are mad on books. Their favourites are ‘Barbar and
Celeste” and, of all things, ‘Struvel Peter’ . They listen with absolute relish to the sad tale
of Harriet who played with matches.

I have kept a laugh for the end. I am hoping that it will not be long before George
comes home and thought it was time to take the next step towards glamour, so last
Wednesday after lunch I settled the children on their beds and prepared to remove the ,
to me, obvious down on my upper lip. (George always loyally says that he can’t see
any.) Well I got out the tube of stuff and carefully followed the directions. I smoothed a
coating on my upper lip. All this was watched with great interest by the children, including
the baby, who stood up in her cot for a better view. Having no watch, I had propped
the bedroom door open so that I could time the operation by the cuckoo clock in the
living room. All the children’s surprised comments fell on deaf ears. I would neither talk
nor smile for fear of cracking the hair remover which had set hard. The set time was up
and I was just about to rinse the remover off when Kate slipped, knocking her head on
the corner of the cot. I rushed to the rescue and precious seconds ticked off whilst I
pacified her.

So, my dears, when I rinsed my lip, not only the plaster and the hair came away
but the skin as well and now I really did have a Ronald Coleman moustache – a crimson
one. I bathed it, I creamed it, powdered it but all to no avail. Within half an hour my lip
had swollen until I looked like one of those Duckbilled West African women. Ann’s
comments, “Oh Mummy, you do look funny. Georgie, doesn’t Mummy look funny?”
didn’t help to soothe me and the last straw was that just then there was the sound of a car drawing up outside – the first car I had heard for months. Anyway, thank heaven, it
was not George, but the representative of a firm which sells agricultural machinery and
farm implements, looking for orders. He had come from Dar es Salaam and had not
heard that all the planters from this district had left their farms. Hospitality demanded that I
should appear and offer tea. I did not mind this man because he was a complete
stranger and fat, middle aged and comfortable. So I gave him tea, though I didn’t
attempt to drink any myself, and told him the whole sad tale.

Fortunately much of the swelling had gone next day and only a brown dryness
remained. I find myself actually hoping that George is delayed a bit longer. Of one thing
I am sure. If ever I grow a moustache again, it stays!

Heaps of love from a sadder but wiser,
Eleanor

Mchewe Estate. 3rd April 1936

Dearest Family,

Sound the trumpets, beat the drums. George is home again. The safari, I am sad
to say, was a complete washout in more ways than one. Anyway it was lovely to be
together again and we don’t yet talk about the future. The home coming was not at all as
I had planned it. I expected George to return in our old A.C. car which gives ample
warning of its arrival. I had meant to wear my new frock and make myself as glamourous
as possible, with our beautiful babe on one arm and our other jewels by my side.
This however is what actually happened. Last Saturday morning at about 2 am , I
thought I heard someone whispering my name. I sat up in bed, still half asleep, and
there was George at the window. He was thin and unshaven and the tiredest looking
man I have ever seen. The car had bogged down twenty miles back along the old Lupa
Track, but as George had had no food at all that day, he decided to walk home in the
bright moonlight.

This is where I should have served up a tasty hot meal but alas, there was only
the heal of a loaf and no milk because, before going to bed I had given the remaining
milk to the dog. However George seemed too hungry to care what he ate. He made a
meal off a tin of bully, a box of crustless cheese and the bread washed down with cup
after cup of black tea. Though George was tired we talked for hours and it was dawn
before we settled down to sleep.

During those hours of talk George described his nightmarish journey. He started
up the flooded Rukwa Valley and there were days of wading through swamp and mud
and several swollen rivers to cross. George is a strong swimmer and the porters who
were recruited in that area, could also swim. There remained the problem of the stores
and of Kianda the houseboy who cannot swim. For these they made rough pole rafts
which they pulled across the rivers with ropes. Kianda told me later that he hopes never
to make such a journey again. He swears that the raft was submerged most of the time
and that he was dragged through the rivers underwater! You should see the state of
George’s clothes which were packed in a supposedly water tight uniform trunk. The
whole lot are mud stained and mouldy.

To make matters more trying for George he was obliged to live mostly on
porters rations, rice and groundnut oil which he detests. As all the district roads were
closed the little Indian Sores in the remote villages he passed had been unable to
replenish their stocks of European groceries. George would have been thinner had it not
been for two Roman Catholic missions enroute where he had good meals and dry
nights. The Fathers are always wonderfully hospitable to wayfarers irrespective of
whether or not they are Roman Catholics. George of course is not a Catholic. One finds
the Roman Catholic missions right out in the ‘Blue’ and often on spots unhealthy to
Europeans. Most of the Fathers are German or Dutch but they all speak a little English
and in any case one can always fall back on Ki-Swahili.

George reached his destination all right but it soon became apparent that reports
of the richness of the strike had been greatly exaggerated. George had decided that
prospects were brighter on the Lupa than on the new strike so he returned to the Lupa
by the way he had come and, having returned the borrowed equipment decided to
make his way home by the shortest route, the old and now rarely used road which
passes by the bottom of our farm.

The old A.C. had been left for safe keeping at the Roman Catholic Galala
Mission 40 miles away, on George’s outward journey, and in this old car George, and
the houseboy Kianda , started for home. The road was indescribably awful. There were long stretches that were simply one big puddle, in others all the soil had been washed
away leaving the road like a rocky river bed. There were also patches where the tall
grass had sprung up head high in the middle of the road,
The going was slow because often the car bogged down because George had
no wheel chains and he and Kianda had the wearisome business of digging her out. It
was just growing dark when the old A.C. settled down determinedly in the mud for the
last time. They could not budge her and they were still twenty miles from home. George
decided to walk home in the moonlight to fetch help leaving Kianda in charge of the car
and its contents and with George’s shot gun to use if necessary in self defence. Kianda
was reluctant to stay but also not prepared to go for help whilst George remained with
the car as lions are plentiful in that area. So George set out unarmed in the moonlight.
Once he stopped to avoid a pride of lion coming down the road but he circled safely
around them and came home without any further alarms.

Kianda said he had a dreadful night in the car, “With lions roaming around the car
like cattle.” Anyway the lions did not take any notice of the car or of Kianda, and the next
day George walked back with all our farm boys and dug and pushed the car out of the
mud. He brought car and Kianda back without further trouble but the labourers on their
way home were treed by the lions.

The wet season is definitely the time to stay home.

Lots and lots of love,
Eleanor

Mchewe Estate. 30th April 1936

Dearest Family,

Young George’s third birthday passed off very well yesterday. It started early in
the morning when he brought his pillow slip of presents to our bed. Kate was already
there and Ann soon joined us. Young George liked all the presents you sent, especially
the trumpet. It has hardly left his lips since and he is getting quite smart about the finger
action.

We had quite a party. Ann and I decorated the table with Christmas tree tinsel
and hung a bunch of balloons above it. Ann also decorated young George’s chair with
roses and phlox from the garden. I had made and iced a fruit cake but Ann begged to
make a plain pink cake. She made it entirely by herself though I stood by to see that
she measured the ingredients correctly. When the cake was baked I mixed some soft
icing in a jug and she poured it carefully over the cake smoothing the gaps with her
fingers!

During the party we had the gramophone playing and we pulled crackers and
wore paper hats and altogether had a good time. I forgot for a while that George is
leaving again for the Lupa tomorrow for an indefinite time. He was marvellous at making
young George’s party a gay one. You will have noticed the change from Georgie to
young George. Our son declares that he now wants to be called George, “Like Dad”.
He an Ann are a devoted couple and I am glad that there is only a fourteen
months difference in their ages. They play together extremely well and are very
independent which is just as well for little Kate now demands a lot of my attention. My
garden is a real cottage garden and looks very gay and colourful. There are hollyhocks
and Snapdragons, marigolds and phlox and of course the roses and carnations which, as
you know, are my favourites. The coffee shamba does not look so good because the
small labour force, which is all we can afford, cannot cope with all the weeds. You have
no idea how things grow during the wet season in the tropics.

Nothing alarming ever seems to happen when George is home, so I’m afraid this
letter is rather dull. I wanted you to know though, that largely due to all your gifts of toys
and sweets, Georgie’s 3rd birthday party went with a bang.

Your very affectionate,
Eleanor

Mchewe Estate. 17th September 1936

Dearest Family,

I am sorry to hear that Mummy worries about me so much. “Poor Eleanor”,
indeed! I have a quite exceptional husband, three lovely children, a dear little home and
we are all well.It is true that I am in rather a rut but what else can we do? George comes
home whenever he can and what excitement there is when he does come. He cannot
give me any warning because he has to take advantage of chance lifts from the Diggings
to Mbeya, but now that he is prospecting nearer home he usually comes walking over
the hills. About 50 miles of rough going. Really and truly I am all right. Although our diet is
monotonous we have plenty to eat. Eggs and milk are cheap and fruit plentiful and I
have a good cook so can devote all my time to the children. I think it is because they are
my constant companions that Ann and Georgie are so grown up for their years.
I have no ayah at present because Janey has been suffering form rheumatism
and has gone home for one of her periodic rests. I manage very well without her except
in the matter of the afternoon walks. The outward journey is all right. George had all the
grass cut on his last visit so I am able to push the pram whilst Ann, George and Fanny
the dog run ahead. It is the uphill return trip that is so trying. Our walk back is always the
same, down the hill to the river where the children love to play and then along the car
road to the vegetable garden. I never did venture further since the day I saw a leopard
jump on a calf. I did not tell you at the time as I thought you might worry. The cattle were
grazing on a small knoll just off our land but near enough for me to have a clear view.
Suddenly the cattle scattered in all directions and we heard the shouts of the herd boys
and saw – or rather had the fleeting impression- of a large animal jumping on a calf. I
heard the herd boy shout “Chui, Chui!” (leopard) and believe me, we turned in our
tracks and made for home. To hasten things I picked up two sticks and told the children
that they were horses and they should ride them home which they did with
commendable speed.

Ann no longer rides Joseph. He became increasingly bad tempered and a
nuisance besides. He took to rolling all over my flower beds though I had never seen
him roll anywhere else. Then one day he kicked Ann in the chest, not very hard but
enough to send her flying. Now George has given him to the native who sells milk to us
and he seems quite happy grazing with the cattle.

With love to you all,
Eleanor.

Mchewe Estate. 2nd October 1936

Dearest Family,

Since I last wrote George has been home and we had a lovely time as usual.
Whilst he was here the District Commissioner and his wife called. Mr Pollock told
George that there is to be a big bush clearing scheme in some part of the Mbeya
District to drive out Tsetse Fly. The game in the area will have to be exterminated and
there will probably be a job for George shooting out the buffalo. The pay would be
good but George says it is a beastly job. Although he is a professional hunter, he hates
slaughter.

Mrs P’s real reason for visiting the farm was to invite me to stay at her home in
Mbeya whilst she and her husband are away in Tukuyu. Her English nanny and her small
daughter will remain in Mbeya and she thought it might be a pleasant change for us and
a rest for me as of course Nanny will do the housekeeping. I accepted the invitation and I
think I will go on from there to Tukuyu and visit my friend Lillian Eustace for a fortnight.
She has given us an open invitation to visit her at any time.

I had a letter from Dr Eckhardt last week, telling me that at a meeting of all the
German Settlers from Mbeya, Tukuyu and Mbosi it had been decided to raise funds to
build a school at Mbeya. They want the British Settlers to co-operate in this and would
be glad of a subscription from us. I replied to say that I was unable to afford a
subscription at present but would probably be applying for a teaching job.
The Eckhardts are the leaders of the German community here and are ardent
Nazis. For this reason they are unpopular with the British community but he is the only
doctor here and I must say they have been very decent to us. Both of them admire
George. George has still not had any luck on the Lupa and until he makes a really
promising strike it is unlikely that the children and I will join him. There is no fresh milk there
and vegetables and fruit are imported from Mbeya and Iringa and are very expensive.
George says “You wouldn’t be happy on the diggings anyway with a lot of whores and
their bastards!”

Time ticks away very pleasantly here. Young George and Kate are blooming
and I keep well. Only Ann does not look well. She is growing too fast and is listless and
pale. If I do go to Mbeya next week I shall take her to the doctor to be overhauled.
We do not go for our afternoon walks now that George has returned to the Lupa.
That leopard has been around again and has killed Tubbage that cowardly Alsatian. We
gave him to the village headman some months ago. There is no danger to us from the
leopard but I am terrified it might get Fanny, who is an excellent little watchdog and
dearly loved by all of us. Yesterday I sent a note to the Boma asking for a trap gun and
today the farm boys are building a trap with logs.

I had a mishap this morning in the garden. I blundered into a nest of hornets and
got two stings in the left arm above the elbow. Very painful at the time and the place is
still red and swollen.

Much love to you all,
Eleanor.

Mchewe Estate. 10th October 1936

Dearest Family,

Well here we are at Mbeya, comfortably installed in the District Commissioner’s
house. It is one of two oldest houses in Mbeya and is a charming gabled place with tiled
roof. The garden is perfectly beautiful. I am enjoying the change very much. Nanny
Baxter is very entertaining. She has a vast fund of highly entertaining tales of the goings
on amongst the British Aristocracy, gleaned it seems over the nursery teacup in many a
Stately Home. Ann and Georgie are enjoying the company of other children.
People are very kind about inviting us out to tea and I gladly accept these
invitations but I have turned down invitations to dinner and one to a dance at the hotel. It
is no fun to go out at night without George. There are several grass widows at the pub
whose husbands are at the diggings. They have no inhibitions about parties.
I did have one night and day here with George, he got the chance of a lift and
knowing that we were staying here he thought the chance too good to miss. He was
also anxious to hear the Doctor’s verdict on Ann. I took Ann to hospital on my second
day here. Dr Eckhardt said there was nothing specifically wrong but that Ann is a highly
sensitive type with whom the tropics does not agree. He advised that Ann should
spend a year in a more temperate climate and that the sooner she goes the better. I felt
very discouraged to hear this and was most relieved when George turned up
unexpectedly that evening. He phoo-hood Dr Eckhardt’s recommendation and next
morning called in Dr Aitkin, the Government Doctor from Chunya and who happened to
be in Mbeya.

Unfortunately Dr Aitkin not only confirmed Dr Eckhardt’s opinion but said that he
thought Ann should stay out of the tropics until she had passed adolescence. I just don’t
know what to do about Ann. She is a darling child, very sensitive and gentle and a
lovely companion to me. Also she and young George are inseparable and I just cannot
picture one without the other. I know that you would be glad to have Ann but how could
we bear to part with her?

Your worried but affectionate,
Eleanor.

Tukuyu. 23rd October 1936

Dearest Family,

As you see we have moved to Tukuyu and we are having a lovely time with
Lillian Eustace. She gave us such a warm welcome and has put herself out to give us
every comfort. She is a most capable housekeeper and I find her such a comfortable
companion because we have the same outlook in life. Both of us are strictly one man
women and that is rare here. She has a two year old son, Billy, who is enchanted with
our rolly polly Kate and there are other children on the station with whom Ann and
Georgie can play. Lillian engaged a temporary ayah for me so I am having a good rest.
All the children look well and Ann in particular seems to have benefited by the
change to a cooler climate. She has a good colour and looks so well that people all
exclaim when I tell them, that two doctors have advised us to send Ann out of the
country. Perhaps after all, this holiday in Tukuyu will set her up.

We had a trying journey from Mbeya to Tukuyu in the Post Lorry. The three
children and I were squeezed together on the front seat between the African driver on
one side and a vast German on the other. Both men smoked incessantly – the driver
cigarettes, and the German cheroots. The cab was clouded with a blue haze. Not only
that! I suddenly felt a smarting sensation on my right thigh. The driver’s cigarette had
burnt a hole right through that new checked linen frock you sent me last month.
I had Kate on my lap all the way but Ann and Georgie had to stand against the
windscreen all the way. The fat German offered to take Ann on his lap but she gave him
a very cold “No thank you.” Nor did I blame her. I would have greatly enjoyed the drive
under less crowded conditions. The scenery is gorgeous. One drives through very high
country crossing lovely clear streams and at one point through rain forest. As it was I
counted the miles and how thankful I was to see the end of the journey.
In the days when Tanganyika belonged to the Germans, Tukuyu was the
administrative centre for the whole of the Southern Highlands Province. The old German
Fort is still in use as Government offices and there are many fine trees which were
planted by the Germans. There is a large prosperous native population in this area.
They go in chiefly for coffee and for bananas which form the basis of their diet.
There are five British married couples here and Lillian and I go out to tea most
mornings. In the afternoon there is tennis or golf. The gardens here are beautiful because
there is rain or at least drizzle all the year round. There are even hedge roses bordering
some of the district roads. When one walks across the emerald green golf course or
through the Boma gardens, it is hard to realise that this gentle place is Tropical Africa.
‘Such a green and pleasant land’, but I think I prefer our corner of Tanganyika.

Much love,
Eleanor.

Mchewe. 12th November 1936

Dearest Family,

We had a lovely holiday but it is so nice to be home again, especially as Laza,
the local Nimrod, shot that leopard whilst we were away (with his muzzleloader gun). He
was justly proud of himself, and I gave him a tip so that he could buy some native beer
for a celebration. I have never seen one of theses parties but can hear the drums and
sounds of merrymaking, especially on moonlight nights.

Our house looks so fresh and uncluttered. Whilst I was away, the boys
whitewashed the house and my houseboy had washed all the curtains, bedspreads,
and loose covers and watered the garden. If only George were here it would be
heaven.

Ann looked so bonny at Tukuyu that I took her to the Government Doctor there
hoping that he would find her perfectly healthy, but alas he endorsed the finding of the
other two doctors so, when an opportunity offers, I think I shall have to send Ann down
to you for a long holiday from the Tropics. Mother-in-law has offered to fetch her next
year but England seems so far away. With you she will at least be on the same
continent.

I left the children for the first time ever, except for my stay in hospital when Kate
was born, to go on an outing to Lake Masoko in the Tukuyu district, with four friends.
Masoko is a beautiful, almost circular crater lake and very very deep. A detachment of
the King’s African Rifles are stationed there and occupy the old German barracks
overlooking the lake.

We drove to Masoko by car and spent the afternoon there as guests of two
British Army Officers. We had a good tea and the others went bathing in the lake but i
could not as I did not have a costume. The Lake was as beautiful as I had been lead to
imagine and our hosts were pleasant but I began to grow anxious as the afternoon
advanced and my friends showed no signs of leaving. I was in agonies when they
accepted an invitation to stay for a sundowner. We had this in the old German beer
garden overlooking the Lake. It was beautiful but what did I care. I had promised the
children that I would be home to give them their supper and put them to bed. When I
did at length return to Lillian’s house I found the situation as I had expected. Ann, with her
imagination had come to the conclusion that I never would return. She had sobbed
herself into a state of exhaustion. Kate was screaming in sympathy and George 2 was
very truculent. He wouldn’t even speak to me. Poor Lillian had had a trying time.
We did not return to Mbeya by the Mail Lorry. Bill and Lillian drove us across to
Mbeya in their new Ford V8 car. The children chattered happily in the back of the car
eating chocolate and bananas all the way. I might have known what would happen! Ann
was dreadfully and messily car sick.

I engaged the Mbeya Hotel taxi to drive us out to the farm the same afternoon
and I expect it will be a long time before we leave the farm again.

Lots and lots of love to all,
Eleanor.

Chunya 27th November 1936

Dearest Family,

You will be surprised to hear that we are all together now on the Lupa goldfields.
I have still not recovered from my own astonishment at being here. Until last Saturday
night I never dreamed of this move. At about ten o’clock I was crouched in the inglenook
blowing on the embers to make a fire so that I could heat some milk for Kate who is
cutting teeth and was very restless. Suddenly I heard a car outside. I knew it must be
George and rushed outside storm lamp in hand. Sure enough, there was George
standing by a strange car, and beaming all over his face. “Something for you my love,”
he said placing a little bundle in my hand. It was a knotted handkerchief and inside was a
fine gold nugget.

George had that fire going in no time, Kate was given the milk and half an aspirin
and settles down to sleep, whilst George and I sat around for an hour chatting over our
tea. He told me that he had borrowed the car from John Molteno and had come to fetch
me and the children to join him on the diggings for a while. It seems that John, who has a
camp at Itewe, a couple of miles outside the township of Chunya, the new
Administrative Centre of the diggings, was off to the Cape to visit his family for a few
months. John had asked George to run his claims in his absence and had given us the
loan of his camp and his car.

George had found the nugget on his own claim but he is not too elated because
he says that one good month on the diggings is often followed by several months of
dead loss. However, I feel hopeful, we have had such a run of bad luck that surely it is
time for the tide to change. George spent Sunday going over the farm with Thomas, the
headman, and giving him instructions about future work whilst I packed clothes and
kitchen equipment. I have brought our ex-kitchenboy Kesho Kutwa with me as cook and
also Janey, who heard that we were off to the Lupa and came to offer her services once
more as ayah. Janey’s ex-husband Abel is now cook to one of the more successful
diggers and I think she is hoping to team up with him again.

The trip over the Mbeya-Chunya pass was new to me and I enjoyed it very
much indeed. The road winds over the mountains along a very high escarpment and
one looks down on the vast Usangu flats stretching far away to the horizon. At the
highest point the road rises to about 7000 feet, and this was too much for Ann who was
leaning against the back of my seat. She was very thoroughly sick, all over my hair.
This camp of John Molteno’s is very comfortable. It consists of two wattle and
daub buildings built end to end in a clearing in the miombo bush. The main building
consists of a large living room, a store and an office, and the other of one large bedroom
and a small one separated by an area for bathing. Both buildings are thatched. There are
no doors, and there are no windows, but these are not necessary because one wall of
each building is built up only a couple of feet leaving a six foot space for light and air. As
this is the dry season the weather is pleasant. The air is fresh and dry but not nearly so
hot as I expected.

Water is a problem and must be carried long distances in kerosene tins.
vegetables and fresh butter are brought in a van from Iringa and Mbeya Districts about
once a fortnight. I have not yet visited Chunya but I believe it is as good a shopping
centre as Mbeya so we will be able to buy all the non perishable food stuffs we need.
What I do miss is the fresh milk. The children are accustomed to drinking at least a pint of
milk each per day but they do not care for the tinned variety.

Ann and young George love being here. The camp is surrounded by old
prospecting trenches and they spend hours each day searching for gold in the heaps of gravel. Sometimes they find quartz pitted with little spots of glitter and they bring them
to me in great excitement. Alas it is only Mica. We have two neighbours. The one is a
bearded Frenchman and the other an Australian. I have not yet met any women.
George looks very sunburnt and extremely fit and the children also look well.
George and I have decided that we will keep Ann with us until my Mother-in-law comes
out next year. George says that in spite of what the doctors have said, he thinks that the
shock to Ann of being separated from her family will do her more harm than good. She
and young George are inseparable and George thinks it would be best if both
George and Ann return to England with my Mother-in-law for a couple of years. I try not
to think at all about the breaking up of the family.

Much love to all,
Eleanor.

 

Once he’d finished to tell the story, and let the kids go back to the cottage for the night, Rukshan’s likeness started to vanish from the place, and his consciousness slowly returned to the place where his actual body was before projecting.

Being closer to the Sacred Forest enhanced his capacities, and where before he could just do sneak peeks through minutes of remote viewing, he could now somehow project a full body illusion to his friends. He’d been surprised that Fox didn’t seem to notice at all that he wasn’t truly there. His senses were probably too distracted by the smells of food and chickens.

He’d wanted to check on his friends, and make sure they were alright, but it seemed his path ahead was his own. He realized that the finishing of the loo was not his own path, and there was no point for him to wait for the return of the carpenter. That work was in more capable hands with Glynis and her magic.

His stomach made an indiscreet rumbling noise. It was not like him to be worried about food, but he’d gone for hours without much to eat. He looked at his sheepskin, and the milk in it had finally curdled. He took a sip of the whey, and found it refreshing. There wouldn’t be goats to milk in this part of the Forest, as they favored the sharp cliffs of the opposite site. This and a collection of dried roots would have to do until… the other side.

To find the entrance wasn’t too difficult, once you understood the directions offered by the old map he’d recovered.

He was on the inner side of the ringed protective enclosures, so now, all he needed was to get into the inner sanctum of the Heartwood Forest, who would surely resist and block his path in different ways.

“The Forest is a mandala of your true nature…”

He turned around. Surprised to see Kumihimo there.

“Don’t look surprised Fae, you’re not the only one who knows these parlor tricks.” She giggled like a young girl.

“of my nature?” Rukshan asked.

“Oh well, of yours, and anybody’s for that matter. It’s all One you, see. The way you see it, it represents yourself. But it would be true for anybody, there aren’t any differences really, only in the one who sees.”

She reappeared behind his back, making him turn around. “So tell me,” she said “what do you see here?”

“It’s where the oldest and strongest trees have hardened, it’s like a fence, and a… a memory?”

“Interesting.” She said “What you say is true, it’s memory, but it’s not dead like you seem to imply. It’s hardened, but very much alive. Like stone is alive. The Giants understood that. And what are you looking for?”

“An entrance, I guess. A weak spot, a crack, a wedge?”

“And why would you need that? What if the heart was the staircase itself? What if in was out and down was up?”

Rukshan had barely time to mouth “thank you” while the likeness of the Braid Seer floated away. She’d helped him figure out the entrance. He touched one of the ring of the hard charred trees. They were pressed together, all clomped in a dense and large enclosure virtually impossible to penetrate. His other memories told him the way was inside, but his old memories were misleading.
Branches were extending from the trunks, some high and inaccessible, hiding the vision of the starry sky, some low, nearly indistinguishable from old gnarled roots. If you looked closely, you could see the branches whirring around like… Archimedes Screw. A staircase?

He jumped on a branch at his level, which barely registered his weight. The branch was dense and very slick, polished by the weathering of the elements, with the feel of an old leather. He almost lost his balance and scrapped his hands between the thumb and the index.

“Down is up?”

He spun around the branch, his legs wrapped around the branch. He expected his backpack to drag him towards the floor, but strangely, even if from his upside-down perspective, it was floating above him, it was as if it was weightless.

He decided to take a chance. Slowly, he hoisted himself towards his floating bag, and instead of falling, it was as though the branch was his ground. Now instead of a spiral staircase around the trees leading to heavens, it was the other side of the staircase that spiraled downwards to the starry night.

With his sheepskin and back still hovering, he started to climb down the branches towards the Giants’ land.

After the Elders were gone back to the Capitol City of the Seven Hills, Rukshan was left pondering for awhile about his duties.
The visit had been pleasant enough, thanks to his deft organisation, and he had the skills to let just enough imponderables and improvising spots so that the whole thing didn’t look too artificially prepared.
The Sultan was pleased, and Rukshan was aware that some behind the curtains politics were are play, where he, somehow also was involved, although he couldn’t yet see how. It seemed his capacity for solving or clarifying complex matters was in high demand. One of the Elders of senior attainment had talked to him briefly, in a very amenable tone which was best suited when asking favours. “How odd” he’d thought, as the discussing dynamics would usually be the other way around.
“Rukshan, I wanted to talk to you about your future” — was how he introduced the conversation. After a few minutes, the intent was clear that there were other places where they had planned to send him.

The next few days had him struggle to appease his own feelings. As usual in the cities, people where dealing in abstractions, and abstractions had the inconvenient side-effect of stirring the sea of the mind in all sorts of directions, none of which related to what was happening in the present moment.

His family was for that matter very dismissive of his way of life, living as he had for many years in the city. Fays used to live in the forests flanking the mountains, deep inside the sacred groves, where they were in accordance with old rites and the natural time, the breath of life in the trees. They argued that men cities were an insane world of abstractions, that made you forget were you came from, and what sustained you.
Ages ago, one of his ancestors, CJ Soliman had written after a visit of the first city (a mere hamlet at the time) “It is quite possible that the Forest is the real world, and that men live in a madhouse of abstractions. Life in the Forest has not yet withdrawn into the capsule of the head. It is still the whole body that lives. No wonder men feel dreamlike; the complete life of the Forest is something of which they merely dream. When you walk with naked feet, how can you ever forget the earth?”

He wouldn’t have disagreed actually. He’d found the pull of nature was strong, soft but steady and immovable. But as far as his life was going, he’d come to realise that cities were in need of a fine balancing act, otherwise, leaving them unchecked would probably hasten the pace at which they ate away acres of forests in their developments. Already, the sacred woods were threatened, and with them, his family and ancestors’ way of life.

After that discussion with the Elder, he’d found the need to clear up and make space for the new. He’d spent a whole day throwing away stuff, amazed at how much even himself would gather of unnecessary things. In the new space, he’d let the birds songs enter through the window, despite the biting cold and the grey fog.
A resolve was birthed in his mind and made clear at the time, as clear as the morning chirping in the thick air.
He would soon go back to the mountains, in the Dragon Heartwood, visit his family and look for the old Hermit for counsel.

“I think you’re ready now” the techromancer said to an incredulous Bea.

“Really?” Bea looked suspicious.

“Yeah, well…” the techromancer looked embarrassed “Not really. You’re not so easy to teach, and I’m not a great teacher either, but with what you learnt, you should be fine. Besides, you need to go now. They are coming for you.”

The techromancer pointed to one of the directions in his hut, one of the many paths or tunnels that would lead her to a safe escape. For now.

“So this is goodbye.” Bea said, a tad annoyed by the unceremoniousness of it all. “What next now?”

“Remember what I told you,” the techromancer said enigmatically “about the custard.”

“Oh well, that makes it so much clearer now.” Bea sighed as she popped out of the hut towards her new destination.