March 25th, 1900.
Cape Town.
This is just to explain our plans and as they take a bit
of explaining this is meant for the Houses of Clark and of
Davis. So, pass it on — After Ladysmith was relieved Buller
decided he would not move
for a month, so I came back to join Roberts. I could not do
that on first arriving because there was a
Mail man with
him. I meant to do it later as a
Herald man, and to let
The Mail go. But on arriving here, having spent a week in
coming and having sold all my outfit at a loss, I found that
Roberts did not intend to move for three weeks either. So I
decided I had seen enough to justify my returning. There were
other reasons, the chief one being that the English irritated
me and I had so little sympathy with them that I could not
write with any pleasure of their work. My sporting blood
refused to boil at the spectacle of such a monster Empire
getting the worst of it from an untrained band of farmers — I
found I admired the farmers. So we decided to chuck it and go
to London. I would not have missed it for anything. I would
never have been satisfied, if we had not come. I have seen
much of the country and the people, and of the army and its
wonderful organization and discipline. I enjoyed two
battles — and the relief of Ladysmith is one of the things to
have seen, almost the best, if not the best. Every officer
and correspondent agrees that I got the pick of the fighting
and the "best story." By the way, I beat all the London
papers in getting out the news by one day. At least, so
Pryor,
The Mail manager tells me. The paper was very much
pleased. We have now decided to come home by the East Coast.
It was Cecil's idea and wish and I was only too glad to do it.
She says we certainly will never come to this country again.
God help us if we do — and that it would be criminal to spend
seventeen blank days on the West coast when we could fill in
the entire trip North on the East Coast at many ports. It is
a rather complicated trip as one has to change frequently but
it will be a great thing to have seen. Cecil has really seen
nothing at Cape Town and on this trip she will be paid for all
the boredom that has gone before. I have been over part of it
and am sure. Durban alone is one of the most curious cities I
ever saw. It is like the Midway at the Fair. I want her to
have some fun out of this. She has been so unselfish and fine
all through and I hope I can make the rest of the adventure to
her liking — It is sure to be for after Delagoa Bay it is all
real Africa not the shoddy "colonial" shopkeepers' paradise
that we have here. And we are going to stop off at Zanzibar
for some time where we have letters to everybody and where
Cecil is to draw the Sultan and I am to play him the "Typical
Tune of Zanzibar." You will see by our route that we spend
two days or a day at many places and so shall get a good idea
of the country. The
Konig is a 5,000 ton ship and we have
two cabins — From Port Said we will run up to Cairo to get a
dinner and then over to Constantinople to see Lloyd Griscom
and the city which Cecil has never visited. Then to Paris by
way of the Orient Express. Then London and back with Charley
to Aix. I feel sure that one more course there will cure my
leg for always. As it is it has not touched me once even
during the campaign when I was wet and had to climb hills, and
at Ladysmith, where I had no food for a week. Of course, if
we get tired on the way up we may go straight on from Port
Said to Marseilles and so to London. It seems funny to look
upon Port Said as being at home, but from this distance it
seems as near New York as Boston — You will get this when we
reach Zanzibar or later and we will cable when we can.
DICK.
It was said at the time that Richard left the British
forces because the censors would not permit him to send out
the truth about Buller's advance, and that the English
officials resented his going to report the war from the Boer
side. The first statement my brother flatly denied, and the
fact that it was through the direct intervention of Sir Alfred
Milner, assisted by the efforts of our consul Adelbert S. Hay
at Pretoria, that Richard was enabled to reach the Boer
capital seems to prove the latter charge equally false.
Although throughout the war my brother's sympathies were with
the Boers, and in spite of the fact that the papers he
represented wanted him to report the war from the Boer side,
he persisted in going at first with the British forces. His
reasons were that he wished to see a great army, with all
modern equipment in action, and that practically all of his
English friends were with the British army. "My only reason
for leaving it", he wrote, "was the fact that I found myself
facing a month of idleness. Had General Buller continued his
advance immediately after his relief of Ladysmith I would have
gone with his column and would probably have never seen a
Boer, except a Boer prisoner."
