i

CAPE TOWN TO

CAIRO

A Record by Jessie Webb

of Her Journey With

Georgina Sweet in 1922

Transcript of existing letters and diary, with photographs, added

maps, footnotes, photographs and introduction

By Margaret O’Callaghan, Canberra, 2013

Copyright © O’Callaghan, Margaret, 2013

Reproduction allowed with acknowledgements of source.

Privately published in 2013

Margaret O’Callaghan, Editor, 1945-.

Cape Town to Cairo – A record by Jessie Webb of her journey with Georgina Sweet

in 1922

Transcript of original letters and diary, photographs and news coverage, with added

maps, footnotes, introduction and commentary, with bibliography.

Historical travel.

Includes bibliography.

ISBN 978-0-9875516-0-3

1.Jessie Webb, 1880-1944. 2. History. 3. Cape Town to Cairo travel 4. Georgina

Sweet, 1875-1946.

Cover design: The editor

i

DEDICATED

TO

Jane Lauder (Jeannie) Watson (1851-1916)

To whom fell the responsibility of bringing up ‘Our Jessie’ from

childhood, and who so admirably fulfilled those duties. Her own dreams1 may

not have been fulfilled but her ward excelled in ways she could never have

imagined.

“Clarior Hinc Honos”

“Henceforth forward the honour shall grow ever brighter”2

and

Margaret Ellen (Peggy) Haynes (1909-1987)

Barbara Haynes (Williams) (1912-1997)

Jeannie’s Great-Nieces, who, luckily for us, preserved family history.

1 As expressed in her 1870 Diary

2 Buchanan family clan motto

ii

CONTENTS

Maps ..............................................................................................................................iii

Tables ............................................................................................................................iii Photographs/Illustrations ..............................................................................................iii Country names used in 1922 and now .......................................................................... iv Glossary ........................................................................................................................ iv Acronyms ....................................................................................................................... v

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ......................................................................................... vii PART 1: FORWARD .................................................................................................... 1

1.1 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................... 1 1.2 BIOGRAPHIES OF THE TRAVELLERS .......................................................... 3 1.3 SYNOPSIS ......................................................................................................... 16

1.4 HISTORY OF THE MATERIALS ................................................................... 17 1.5 DESCRIPTION OF THE MATERIALS ........................................................... 17

1.6 ROUTE TAKEN AND DURATION OF COUNTRY VISITS ....................... 24 1.7 LETTER ADDRESSEES .................................................................................. 27

1.8 COMMENTARY ............................................................................................... 28 PART 2. TRANSCRIPTS ............................................................................................ 32

2.1. TRANSCRIPT OF LETTERS .......................................................................... 32 2.2 TRANSCRIPT OF THE DIARY ..................................................................... 108 2.3 TRANSCRIPT OF ANOTHER LETTER ....................................................... 146

2.3. TRANSCRIPT OF OTHER WRITINGS IN THE DIARY ........................... 151 PART 3: PRESS AND OTHER COVERAGE OF JOURNEY ................................ 153

3.1 Press Coverage ................................................................................................. 153 3.1.1 Women’s World, the Melbourne Monthly, March 1922 .......................... 153 3.1.2 Melbourne Argus, 1 March 1923 .............................................................. 153

3.1.3 Melbourne Argus, 20 April 1923 .............................................................. 154 3.1.4

Wyvern (Queen’s College 1.1.1923, 39. ................................................. 154 3.1.5 Brisbane Courier, Tuesday 24 July 1923 ................................................. 154 3.1.6 Melbourne University Magazine, August 1923, 130 ................................ 155

3.1.7 The Register, Adelaide, 12 Feb 1924 ........................................................ 155 3.1.8 Daily New Perth, 21 Feb. 1924 ................................................................. 155

3.1.9 Sydney Morning Herald, 22 Feb. 1924 ..................................................... 156 3.1.10 The Advertiser, Adelaide, 28 Feb 1924 .................................................. 157 3.1.11 Barrier Miner (Broken Hill), 8 March 1924 ........................................... 158

3.1.12 The Brisbane Courier, 7th

June, 1924, .................................................... 158 3.1.13 Brisbane Courier, 5 Oct. 1925 ................................................................ 158

3.1.14 Brisbane Courier, 23 Nov. 1932 ............................................................. 158 3.1.15 Papers on Various Australian Women, ................................................... 159

3.1.16 Australian Women’s Digest, Jan. 1946, 27 ............................................. 160 REFERENCES .......................................................................................................... 161

iii

Maps 1. The entire route travelled

2. South Africa

3. Southern and northern Rhodesia

4. Belgian Congo

5. Tanganyika and Zanzibar

6. Kenya

7. Uganda

8. Detail of Albert Nile-Nimule-Rejaf safari route

9. Sudan and Egypt

Tables Table 1. Watson Family Tree, relevant part only

Table 2. Dates, route, mode of travel, duration and evidence of journey stages

Photographs/Illustrations (All JW’s photographs in UMA)

1. Portrait of Jessie Stobo Webb (MUA)

2. Portrait of the Watson sisters, 1877 (family records))

3. Jessie Stobo Webb, aged 27, 1907 (Mary Stewart Webb’s family collection)

4. Portrait of Georgina Sweet (MUA)

5. Untitled. Georgina Sweet on deck of SS Ulysses on the way to Africa (JW)

6. Photo of a page from a letter

7. Train and boat timetable (Faith, 1990)

8. “Women washing, Umgeni River”, Durban (JW)

9. Sketch of a Dutch Cape house roofline (JW)

10. Sketch of Table Mountain, Cape Town. (JW)

11. “The Horderns at Ferndene Hotel” (JW)

12. “Rickshaw driver with head-dress, snapped from rickshaw” [at Durban] (JW)

13. “Modderfontein Estate – the house”, near Pretoria (JW)

14. “Galloping native, snapped from train” (presumably in South Africa or

Bechuanaland (JW)

15. “(Great) Zimbabwe homestead” (JW)

16. Native mine worker’s huts, Katanga (Shay)

17. Sketch of Elizabethville (JW)

18. Louis Cousin, 1920 (Shantz))

19. Advertisement for Impreial Hotel, Kampala (Tabor)

20. “Mr Whitworth’s hut at Meru” (JW)

21. Sketch map (JW)

22. Sketch of a head-dress (JW)

23. Government motor van, Uganda, 1911 (Gann and Duignan)

24. The type of carrying arrangements used on safari (Pettifer and Bradley)

25. Sketch of skirt (JW)

26. Sketch of hut (JW)

27. Untitled. Appears to be a wood station on the Nile in the Sudan (JW)

28. Untitled. Appears to be one of the stops on the Nile in the Sudan (JW)

iv

29. Untitled. It appears to be a wood loading point on the Nile in the Sudan (JW)

30. Sketch of hurricane/safari lamp (JW)

31. The Nile in flood and first glimpse of the desert opposite Kawa (JW).

Photographs/Illustrations by:

JW - photographs or sketches

UMA – University of Melbourne Archives

Others as referenced in the document

Country names used in 1922 and now.

Union of South Africa – Republic of South Africa

Bechuanaland Protectorate – Republic of Botswana

Southern Rhodesia – Republic of Zimbabwe

British South Africa Company Chartered Territory3 then Northern Rhodesia –

Republic of Zambia

Belgian Congo - Democratic Republic of the Congo

Mandated Territory of Tanganyika – United Republic of Tanzania

Kenya Colony – Republic of Kenya

Uganda Protectorate – Republic of Uganda

Anglo-Egyptian Sudan (or Soudan) – Republic of the Sudan and South Sudan

Egypt – Arab Republic of Egypt

Glossary Apana (hahana) – no (Swahili)

Apana missoure (hapana mzuri) – not good (Sw)

Askari – Indigenous East African (or Arabic) soldier

Bey –Turkish term for a chief, used later for a District Administrator /military man

Blanco – washing soap, bar or powder

Buttonies – English type of biscuit, also known as bachelor’s buttons

Cerise scallops – presumably a blouse with scalloped edging in a cerise colour

Cooks – Thomas Cook’s travel agency

Dobie (dhobi) – washerman

Dragoman – guide, translator

Duka – small Indian run shop (Sw)

Erissa – the cook who travelled with them from Nimule to Rejaf

Fawn suede-tick that gives relapsing fever (probably of the Rickettesia family)

Funde - expert

Gwenda or givendra (Kwenda) – go on or go (Sw)

Judu (Dudu) – insect (Swahili)

Kabaka – Baganda King, Uganda

Kanga (kanzu) – length of cloth worn tied around waste, East African

Katikere – Baganda Prime Minister, Uganda

Kesho – tomorrow

Kopje – small rocky hill

3 For ease of comprehension the term “Northern Rhodesia” will be used when referring to what was at

that time the Chartered Territory, a practice in line with Marcosson’s usage during his 1920 visit (p.76).

v

Kosia - the cook from Kampala, who returned to Kampala when they reached

Memsahib - missus

Missouri – all right (Sw)

Mustapha – a Kenyan Askari (soldier) who accompanied them from Nimule to Rejaf

on the safari leg of the journey

Jambo – Greeting (Sw)

Mafewa - (mapema) early (Sw)

Mamur – Chief District Officer (Egyptian)

Manowari – warship (Sw)

Marie – common type of English biscuit

Mavukola (Kolo) – their attendant on the river boat from Bukama

Mende – cockroach (Sw)

Missouri (Mzuri) – good, all right (Sw)

Momina – married woman (Sudan)

Moto – boy, in Uganda

Nyanza - lake

Nyempasa (Nyapara) – headman or head porter

Picannin – baby or young child

Pukka – first class, good

Puttees – below knee leggings worn by soldiers

Quft – Originally known as Coptus, on east bank of Nile, 38 kms NE of Luxor,

important trade centre and gateway to the mining resources of the Eastern Desert from

earliest times and a major trans-shipment point in Greco-Roman times, excavated in

1910/11.

Safari – travelling on foot or being carried in a hammock or some sort, with a string of

porters carrying one’s luggage

Sandle - barge

Schibo – The Katikiro’s secretary/scribe

Sekibobo – Baganda Chief

Shamba – vegetable garden

Sigare (sigara) – cigarette (Sw)

Sun Time – versus Government time, central Africa used two systems of telling the

time

Toto – small child

Tuckel – tukel - round hut, usually made with mud walls with a grass roof

Reis – very experienced African navigator on the Nile

Wrangler – in Mathematics, an old English term for someone with prizes in the

subject

Acronyms ADC Assistant District Commissioner

ANU The Australian National University

BSACT British South African Chartered Territory

CSM – Church Missionary Society

DC District Commissioner

FN Footnote

GS Georgina Sweet

HRH His Royal Highness

JW Jessie Webb

JSWW Jessie Stobo Watson Webb

vi

K.A.R. - King’s African Rifles, a multi-battalion British colonial regiment raised from

the various British possessions in East Africa from 1902 until independence in the

1960s. It performed both military and internal security functions within the East

African colonies as well as external service. Rank and file were called askaris.

Km Kilometre

Mt Metre

NB Note well

nd No date

NLA National Library of Australia

OBE Order of the British Empire

PC Provincial Commissioner

RC – Roman Catholic

SA South Africa

SR Southern Rhodesia

UMA University of Melbourne Archives

YWCA Young Women’s Christian Association

vii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I especially wish to acknowledge Professor Emeritus Ronald Ridley of

Melbourne University for his numerous contributions to the preparation of this

document. Not only was his Jessie Webb - A Memoir the starting point for this

project, and the source of much information, but he shared my delight in the discovery

of her Africa diary and my undertaking of the transcription. His subsequent on-going

support and advice regarding its preparation has been very helpful to a non-history

trained researcher. I am especially grateful to him for the considerable amount of time

he took in responding to my many queries, checking for the missing information, and,

excitingly, finding some of it, as well as contributing to the editing. However, any

errors or weaknesses in the final presentation are my own.

My long-time friend Margaret Nichols, formerly of the National Library of

Australia, also played a valuable role in helping to proof-read the transcripts and

provided on-going professional and moral support during the exercise. Thanks also go

to my other friends and children who have patiently put up with my endless chatter on

the subject and politely enquired “How is Jessie getting on?” – as if she was living in

my house – which her spirit definitely was doing. Some friends also provided

valuable advice on how the document should be put together, including Associate

Professor David Lucas, Dr Kristine Klugman AO, Stephanie Fehre and Barbara

Muirhead. My overseas correspondents Malcolm Asquith, Charles Rae and Dave

Skippings also very generously contributed information.

I also wish to acknowledge the support of Professor Tessa Morris-Suzuki of

ANU, with whom I did a joint seminar on our respective women travellers for the

ANU Division of Pacific and Asian History in November 2009, and to Dr Peter

Stanley who recognized the value of the record.

My thanks also go to the Melbourne University Archives and Library staff for

their assistance in locating and forwarding the material to me in Canberra and to my

eldest son Benjamin O’Callaghan and friend Dr Geoffrey Munyeme who provided IT

support.

Last but not least, I also wish to acknowledge family members: Firstly, the

aunts, Peggy and Barbara who had the foresight to keep family records (although

ignored by the younger generation in their life-times) and secondly, my cousin,

Professor James Watson Goding who first sent me Professor Ridley’s Memoir which

sparked off this project. He and his wife, Associate Professor Emanuela Handman,

also provided me with warm hospitality when I visited Melbourne to work with the

original diary in the University of Melbourne Archives. Other relatives, including

Margaret Slatter and Annette Webb, kindly provided some family information and

material which added to the background.

1

PART 1:FORWARD

1.1 INTRODUCTION

Jessie Webb was one of my maternal relatives and well known in our family

for her academic achievements, which, for the time, were unusual. Professor Ridley’s

Memoir provided fascinating insights into the life of our illustrious forebear but my

attention was particularly drawn to Chapter Five which mentioned Jessie’s travels,

including how she and Georgina Sweet had journeyed from Cape to Cairo in 1922.

Being something of an Africanophile and having not long returned from living and

travelling there, it seemed a pity that there was so little information available on what

surely must have been a very exciting journey.

Soon afterwards I consulted the internet and came across mention of Jessie’s

diary of the journey in the Australian Women’s Archive’s records – material which

had not been available to Professor Ridley for his 1994 publication. Melbourne

University Archives, which owned the diary (and also only a small number of related

photographs), kindly sent me a photocopy which I then transcribed. But to my

surprise I found that the record began in Uganda, halfway through the journey. So

where was the first half, if indeed it had been recorded? Communications with

Professor Ridley followed and considerable digging and delving by him led to his

fortuitously discovering some of the missing information. This material was in the

form of letters (or portions thereof) and he found them in one of Jessie’s Professors’

archives4. Searching amongst family members unfortunately failed to un-earth any

other related material so the record remains incomplete.

However, sufficient material existed to provide a reasonably good overview of

the whole journey. Transcription was completed and editing and mapping (which

hadn’t been included in either the letters or diary) were undertaken. Together this

work has resulted in a comprehensible record of the journey being available for the

first time.

While I have not had the advantage of academic training in history, I have

brought to this project a background in research, knowledge from my large personal

Africana library and contacts in the area, first-hand experience of some of the places

referred to, and of course, family knowledge and records.

This research has inspired the collection of other pre-Second World War Cape

to Cairo stories and the writing of two papers, which are included in this document5

and the other, forthcoming, is an analysis and commentary on Jessie’s record. In

addition, further research is also being undertaken on other travellers, with the

intention of compiling the information into a book on the history of early Cape to

Cairo journeys, including a section on women and on Australians. Given that Jessie’s

record is now being published for the first time, it will also rate inclusion in the global

literature on the subject.

4 R. M. Crawford, Box History, Box X, MUA

5 See O’Callaghan, 2009 and 2013

2

I must beg Cousin Jessie’s pardon for going public with what she regarded to

be personal communications with family and friends but given their historical value

and the continuing public interest in Cape to Cairo journeys I would hope for

forgiveness, if not a blessing. I suspect that she and Georgina would be proud to be

considered amongst other intrepid women travellers/writers of the period and happy

too that I, another African traveller, had become the editor.

Margaret O’Callaghan

Jessie’s first-cousin, twice removed on the maternal Watson. Also a fellow African traveller who lived

and worked in Africa for seven years and who has also written extensively about her own travels.

Currently a Visiting Fellow at the Australian National University, researching the socio-economic

impact of mining in Zambia, and continuing research into the history of early Cape to Cairo journeys.

Canberra, Australia

2013

3

1.2 BIOGRAPHIES OF THE TRAVELLERS

Illus 1. Jessie Stobo Watson Webb (Courtesy of the UMA)

There’s Jess, the prepar’d, the learned, the frail.

The heroine fair of many a tale,

Our children’s grandchildren shall quote her in song,6

Jessie Stobo Watson Webb (1880-1944)7 was born near Tumut, New South Wales on

1st August 1880 where her father Charles Webb (1855-89) was manager of Ellerslie

sheep and cattle station. He was born in New Zealand of English extraction. Her

mother, Jessie Stobo Watson (1849-1880), was born in Scotland and migrated to

Melbourne in 1857 with her family. They included her father, Thomas Lauder Watson

(1820-94), a warehousing and soft-goods importer and mother Jessie Stobo, nee

Thompson (1825-1908), and five siblings (five more were born in Australia). Jessie

(Webb) was therefore the third generation with the Christian names ‘Jessie Stobo’.

For ten years the Watson family lived at the well-known Glenfern 8in East St Kilda

before it was sold to the famous Boyd family in 1876. This was before the youngest

Jessie was born but it was there that her aunt (and later her foster mother) Jeannie

Watson wrote in 1870 her diary which provides a wonderful vignette of life in

suburban Melbourne at that time, and also something of the nature of the Watson

family and its author who was to become so important in Jessie’s life9.

6 Extract from Enid Durham’s doggerel composed for the Catalyst Club on 15

th March 1924 at the time

of Jessie’s return from overseas, quoted in Ridley, p 89. And indeed she is being quoted, albeit by a

cousin one step across and two down on the ‘Family Tree’ 7 Sources: Ridley, MacCullum, ADB and family sources

8 Glenfern http://www.nattrust.com.au/misc/glenfern

9 Watson, 1870

4

Jessie’s life commenced with a tragedy, unfortunately common to that period.

Her mother died four days after giving birth near Tumut, just before her first wedding

anniversary. A further tragedy followed nine years later when her father Charles died

in a buggy accident, also up in the mountains. She was therefore brought up by her

maiden aunt Jeannie, initially at Ellerslie, and later in Melbourne with the large

Watson family (twenty-five cousins in Jessie’s generation) and in contact with her

father’s relations, who were also quite numerous.

Illus. 2. The Watson sisters, Melbourne circa 1870, Jeannie (JW’s aunt and foster mother),

Jessie (JW’s mother) and Maggie (JW’s aunt and this editor’s Great Grandmother). (Family records).

Despite those set-backs, or perhaps because of them, the funds that Jessie’s

father wisely left for her education were well used. She excelled at school,

matriculating at age sixteen and went on to Melbourne University where she studied

the Classics and graduated with a BA with first class honours in 1902 and an MA in

1904. She taught in private schools for a number of years, including being principal

of one, and also tutored at the University. From December 1908 she was appointed as

an evening lecturer, teaching Ancient and British history, finally becoming a full time

lecturer in 1911. She subsequently served for thirty-six years, under three professors -

Elkington, Scott and Crawford. She was Acting Professor of History on three

occasions, including at the time of her death. According to Ridley10

, her workload was

often extremely heavy. In recognition of her long service to the History Department a

library is named after her.

A significant part of Jessie’s life was her very active involvement in women’s

organizations, commencing in her student days with the Princess Ida Club and later

the Lyceum (including being president 1920/22) and the Catalyst Clubs. She was also

a founding member of the Victorian Women Graduates’ Association (and its president

from 1924/6), and of the Victorian Historical Society. These organizations provided

her with a rich social and intellectual life and she became a core member of a very

10

Ridley, p. 124

5

active cohort of those early women graduates. Many of them stayed close friends for

life and were actively involved in supporting women’s issues.

Table 1. Watson Family Tree (names mentioned in this record only)

6

In 1923, in recognition of her active role in women’s affairs and high

reputation, the Prime Minister appointed her as a “substitute representative” or

“alternate delegate” (which was what women’s positions were called) of the

Australian delegation to the League of Nations meeting in Geneva. While this

appointment may have been partially due to her near-by presence in Greece at the

time, it was still very much an honour. On return to Australia she gave many talks on

the experience and the associated issues.

Jessie was also a founder of the Women’s College at Melbourne University

which was opened in 1937 and helped to raise funds for Women Graduates’

scholarships. She was involved in extension work related to country teaching and

adult education and also in the Australian Federation of University Women. In 1935,

her many contributions to Victorian society were recognized with the award a Silver

Jubilee Medal of George V, one of 1,400 Victorians to be so recognized.

Jessie travelled overseas on three occasions, firstly to Europe with her Aunt

Jeannie in 1897/8, secondly in 1922-4 to Africa and then to Europe on study leave,

and thirdly, in 1936 to the Middle East, around the Mediterranean and to Europe. The

latter trip was also on study leave, and mainly to see the sites of ancient civilizations

she had studied for so long. Some of this travel was undertaken under very difficult

circumstances, demonstrating Jessie’s pluck and determination. A very different

journey, but equally adventurous, was undertaken with Alice Anderson (of Alice

Anderson Motor Service fame)11

. In September 1926 they travelled to Central

Australia in a Baby Austin 7, the highlight of which was experiencing the annual and

extraordinarily brief display of wild flowers.12

The last decade of her career was taken up with a continuingly heavy array of

academic responsibilities and an intensive programme of activities related to women’s

organizations. Sadly, the last ten months of her life were affected by illness which

turned out to be caused by cancer. She died in Melbourne on the 17th

February, 1944,

aged sixty-three, closely supported by her women friends. Jessie had lived a full and

very impressive life.

A well-rounded picture of Jessie requires some personal details. Maternal

grandfather Thomas Watson was “…a relatively successful merchant…” in Flinders

Lane but perhaps the demands of such a large family, including seven daughters,

drained their resources, as hinted at by Ridley13

and by Jeannie in her diary when

discussing the girls’ dress requirements. 14

This background meant that she

surrounded by a reasonably comfortable but never rich, middle-class family, and one

which recognized the value of education. Although orphaned Jessie was surrounded

by a large network of maternal family, including her deceased mother’s sisters who

had been closest in age to her - Maggie, Jeannie and Agnes, as well as the six other

siblings (one had died young). The Webb family were also in touch.

11

Clarson, ADB 12

See Ridley, p. 97/8 and Clarson, 2008, p. 107. 13

Ridley, p. 9. 14

Watson,1870.

7

Illus.3. Jessie Stobo Webb, 1907, aged 27 years (From paternal grandmother Mary Stewart

Webb’s family records, courtesy of Annette Webb)

8

Her maternal grandmother, Jessie Stobo Watson, died in January 1908, having

lived long enough to see her grand-daughter become one of Victoria’s early women

graduates and a teacher, (although not yet a university staff member) – surely the first

female (and perhaps male) member of the family to have progressed in such a way. It

is wondered if she understood and appreciated just what Jessie had achieved and how

she had excelled in ways which have become a minor legend in our family. Amongst

those early generations only her uncle, Thomas Greenlees Watson15

(1859-1913) and

her cousin, Thomas Watson Haynes (1879-1963)16

achieved anywhere near similar

public re-known.

Her aunt Jeannie Watson, who died in 1916, was able to see her protégé firmly

established in what became a lifelong, well respected professional career, surely a

magnificent compliment to her nurturing of her late sister’s child. Jeannie might not

have had the opportunities she had dreamt of in her 1870 diary17

(especially marriage)

but her contribution to providing a home and loving support to her orphaned niece’s

development deserves to be recognized and acknowledged.

Physically Jessie was petite, as can be seen from the photo of her sitting with

the Horderns on the veranda in Durban (Illus. 11), and the Herald summed up Jessie

as being “… small, slight and very energetic…”.18

Ridley quotes Kathleen

Fitzpatrick describing her as being “… small and quite plain, rather like a bird…….

No classic beauty, her best feature was obviously her hair, which was thick and

slightly wavy and, “reddish”, which later faded to “… pale, between gold and silver,

extremely fine, the sort into which it was hard to fasten hairpins. It was always rather

wild looking and sometimes tumbled down her back”.19

Jessie’s letter from Toro in

Uganda contributes to this description of what indeed must have been her ‘crowning

glory’.

Jessie seems to have been generally very healthy and fit, as evidenced by her

Table Mountain experience and her being very well throughout the journey, until she

arrived in Cairo and came down with a bad cold. But she was a very poor sailor,

suffering from seasickness and dreading boat trips, as indicated in the record.

The personality which emerges from the African record is consistent with

observations reported in Ridley’s Memoir including “… her Jane Austen’ish

observingness and delight in the enduring absurdities of human kind”,20

that she was

“…. wise, witty, kind and liberal in every sense, wide open to new ideas… and

eminently rational…”.21

He also gives examples of her as being extremely modest -

15

Thomas Greenlees Watson (1889-1913) was a very respected Clerk of the Legislative Council and

Clerk of Parliament (1882-1912). Both Houses adjourned in respect for his funeral, the first time for an

officer of Parliament 16

.Thomas Watson Haynes (this editor’s grandfather), son of Maggie Watson/Haynes who was Jessie’s

eldest aunt. He was a successful Melbourne businessman, including in the mining sector, and became

President of the Melbourne Chamber of Commerce, among other appointments. He authored Our Daily

Bread 1933, partly about the phosphate industry 17

Watson,1870. 18

Herald, 25 Jan. 1937, quoted in Ridley, p120 19

Fitzpatrick, quoted in Ridley, p. 160 20

Phillips, quoted in Ridley, p. 158 21

Fitzpatrick, quoted in Ridley, p.160

9

“so small and of no reputation”, and that characteristic too comes across in her

writings. Ridley also quotes James Docherty, that one of her students who wrote of

her ‘enthusiasm, exuberance, ebullience, wide-ranging scholarship, vitality, humanity,

friendliness and warmth.’22

Certainly her African journey record clearly demonstrates

a keen sense of irony and humour.

Interestingly for her time, and from her early adult days, she did not profess to

a religion (which is also apparent from the Africa record). Kathleen Fitzpatrick

remembers declaring at her funeral that, “This is all wrong for Jessie”, meaning the

religious ceremony which was held.23

Also unusually for her time, she was cremated,

rather than buried, with her ashes scattered at Springvale and no memorial built. But

she is well commemorated in the library named after her, and amongst those familiar

with the history of Victoria’s famous cohort of early female graduates, the Lyceum

Club and the Women’s College.

Jessie was forty-one years old when she set off on the African journey, en-

route to Greece and Europe on what was her first sabbatical. The reason why her

African experiences did not receive earlier recognition would appear to be because,

unlike her travelling companion Georgina Sweet (known in the record as Georgie),

she did not return to Melbourne immediately, Jessie only arriving back in February

1924. Then her life was taken up with a heavy load of academic duties and also “…

an endless round of lectures…” including to the Lyceum Club, the Historical Society,

the Victorian Women Graduates, the National Council of Women and the League

Union. Press coverage in a range of state newspapers also shows that she was a

popular speaker in the other states.24

Her main topics were her academic work in

Greece and her participation in the 1923 League of Nations meeting, with the African

trip only occasionally mentioned.

It is notable that Jessie was not at all well off financially, her academic salary

being modest and her father’s inheritance obviously having been drained by

supporting her and Aunt Jeannie’s care and her education for two decades. Ridley

reports that she had in fact been granted two years leave on half-pay in 1922 and even

less in 192325

so she really had to watch her pennies during the trip. There are

indications in the record that she was (probably informally) recruited to be the more

affluent Georgie’s travelling companion, rather than the trip being an initiative of her

own. It seems that arrangements were made that Georgie covered some of the costs,

such as the safari from Nimule – and perhaps their staying at hotels – an arrangement

which Jessie would probably not have been able to afford. Jessie’s pride was likely to

have only allowed her to accept such an arrangement because Georgie could not have

accomplished the journey alone, and it seems that no one else was willing to

accompany her. Jessie was heading for Greece anyway, so going via Africa wasn’t a

major diversion – just a rather unusually complex one! But, as we know from her

other travels, she did have a strong streak of adventurousness herself. In addition her

paternal Webb grandfather was something of a globe-trotter himself and probably

communicated about his travels in north Africa and elsewhere, and her cousin Thomas

22

Quoted in Ridley, pp. 166/7 23

Quoted in Ridley, p.139 24

See Section 3.1 of news cuttings which demonstrate the nation-wide nature of her talks 25

Ridley, p. 63

10

Haynes was travelling around the Pacific visiting phosphate islands on the Nauru

Chief while she was in Africa.26

Her travelling companion, and the probable27

instigator of the journey, was

fellow Melbourne University academic and Lyceum Club member, Georgina Sweet.

Illus. 4. Georgina Sweet (Courtesy of the University of Melbourne Archives, UMA/I/1071).

Dr Georgina Sweet OBE (1875-1946) 28

was born in Melbourne, the eldest

daughter of English born George and Fanny (nee Dudman) Sweet. Mr Sweet ran the

Brunswick Brick, Tile and Pottery Company and was a successful businessman. He

was also an enthusiastic amateur geologist and naturalist and became President of the

Royal Society of Victoria (1905). He had a strong and very positive influence on her

career development, involving her in his interests from a very early age. This support

really paid off for Georgina became a woman of many ‘firsts’ – the first female in

Australia to be awarded a DSc (1904), to serve as acting professor (of Biology), the

first associate professor (of Zoology) and the first female on the University Council,

all at Melbourne University.

Her illustrious career commenced when she entered Melbourne University and

became one of the earliest female science graduates (1896), completing a Masters of

Science in 1898 and her Doctorate in 1904. She was fortunate to have studied under

the distinguished biologist Professor (Sir) Henry Baldwin Spencer who encouraged

women students.

26

Family records 27

This will be discussed in my forthcoming Commentary and Analysis 28

Fitzpatrick, ADB

11

Georgina commenced her career as a Biology school teacher because of the

prevailing lack of science opportunities and she conducted her applied research in the

evenings and during weekends. She was eventually appointed to a lectureship in

Biology in 1901 at Queen’s College and then in 1908 received a University

appointment which was made permanent the following year. Her subjects were

Biology, Zoology and Parasitology, as well as Agriculture, Zoology and Entomology,

some of which she taught in the Veterinary School. In 1911 she won the coveted

“Syme Prize” for her research on worm nodules in cattle. Her research specialities

became the zoology of Australian native animals and the parasitic infestations of

Australian stock and native fauna, which became of scientific and economic

importance to Australia. She became recognized as an expert in her field, both at

home and abroad and was engaged by the Government to investigate parasitic

problems in cattle in other countries. She also acted as head of department on a

number of occasions, including during the War years which were particularly

demanding because of the prolonged absences of both of her professors and because

courses were accelerated. She was finally appointed Associate Professor of Zoology

in 1920 but never received a Professorship. She was a member of the Advisory

Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, the Australasian Association for the

Advancement of Science and the Australian National Research Council.

From 1925 she gradually relinquished her professional responsibilities and in

1934 she completely retired due to the ill-health which had plagued her for many

years. Her scientific career totalled over thirty years of teaching and research

involvement in Zoology and related subjects. She was described as being “…

undoubtedly a significant figure in terms of the achievements of Australian women in

the earlier part of the twentieth century….”29

. Claire Hooker states that Georgina can

claim the title of being “… Australia’s first woman scientist.”30

In addition to her academic work she was a Member of the University College

Council, Queen’s College Council and the Women’s College, as well as Secretary of

the University Union and a member of the Council of Secondary Teachers of Victoria.

Additionally she served in an advisory capacity on various educational committees

and acted as an examiner. She was also a popular public speaker.

Her academic work was more than balanced by her involvement in many other

organizations, including the Royal Society of Victoria, the Field Naturalists Club and

the Women’s Graduates Association. She was also a founder, with Jessie, of the

Lyceum Club and the MU Women’s College. However, most of her energy in her

latter years was devoted to the YWCA (being national President from 1927-1934) and

the Pan-Pacific Women’s Association (President in 1930). She also played a key role

in the establishment of the Australian Joint Standing Committee of Women to link up

with international women’s organizations, out of which arose the Australian Liaison

Committee of Women’s Federal Organizations which was linked with the Pan Pacific

Women’s Association. In addition she was a director of the Bureau of Social and

International Affairs, a member of Council of the State League of Nations Union;

executive member of the Australian Institute of Pacific Relations, a member of the

Victorian International Refugee Emergency Council, the Board of Social Studies and

29

Arundel, Beveridge and Sandeman, 2009 30

The Science Show, 2004

12

the Victorian Council for Mental Hygiene. In recognition of this extensive

community-related work she was awarded an OBE in 1935.

As if all of these activities weren’t enough, Georgina also had a life-long

involvement in the work of the Methodist Church, in advocating for votes and

technical education for women and also for promoting family planning.

Travelling was her great joy and she often mixed business with pleasure on her

many trips, both in Australia and overseas, including Asia, Europe and the USA, and

of course, Africa. In later years she travelled widely in her capacity as Australian

President of the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA), a Vice President of

the World YWCA and the Pan-Pacific Women’s Association.

On a more personal note, she experienced great family tragedy just after

World War One. Her mother died in 1919, followed shortly afterwards by her younger

sister Dr. Elizabeth Sweet who was one of the many victims of the flu epidemic of the

same year. Her father died in 1920 so within a period of sixteen months she had lost

all of her immediate family31

. These events, along with the effects of the heavy

workload experienced during the war years because of the absence of male

colleagues, on top of her inherent poor health, may well have prompted her to go

ahead with plans for the 1922 African journey which had been her childhood dream. 32

Georgina was described as having a deep sense of religion and a great deal of

common sense, excellent organizing ability and a firm grasp of business methods. She

was also described as being poised with a straightforward and generous nature and a

keen sense of humour. She was also remarkably stoic about her life-long physical

weaknesses (possibly due to having had Rheumatic Fever as a child33

), rarely

allowing them to inhibit her busy lifestyle. These characteristics are also demonstrated

in Jessie’s record of their African travels. Although she never regarded herself as a

feminist or a “new woman”, she was a strong supporter of women’s rights (including

sex education) and never felt herself disadvantaged as a woman34

- which may have

been largely due to the support given to her by her father – not to mention her

financial independence.

With a considerable inheritance from her father she became a philanthropist,

making many gifts, both during her life and through her Will. They were largely

directed towards Melbourne University and the Methodist Church. Smaller amounts

were provided to over a dozen institutions a well as scholarships, including ones

named for her parents and sister, and which are still current. Despite being in ill-

health all her life and leading an extraordinarily active social life, she lived for

seventy-one years of age, and out-lived the younger and much healthier Jessie by two

years.

31

Rapke, p. 7 (see transcript in Part 3.1.15) 32

Rapke, as above 33

Opinion of a relative who is a doctor 34

MacCallum, ADB

13

Illus. 5. Georgie relaxing on board SS Ulysses, on the way from Melbourne to Durban (JW)

14

Georgie, as she was known to her friends, was forty-six years old when she

and Jessie set off to Africa in order to fulfil what was reportedly her life-long dream.

The location or even existence of her records of the journey is not known by this

author. There is however a brief description in an Argus interview35

and a mention by

Rapke in her article36

. Jessie stated from Uganda, that Georgie too wrote home

regularly, with many detailed facts included, but it is not known to whom (as her

immediate family had all died). Ridley reports that Georgie gave a slide talk on

Foundation Day at Melbourne University entitled “Three Thousand miles by the Nile”

(not located) and that there was a brief mention in the Melbourne University

Magazine, August 1923. While in Zanzibar Jessie does mention that Georgie wrote a

“… general letter to the Catalysts” and reported in Uganda that she wrote very

detailed letters. It is likely to be productive to research Georgie’s records for further

information and a different viewpoint of the journey, but that was unfortunately

beyond the scope of this particular research.

35

Argus, 1923 (see Part 3.1.2) 36

Rapke, see 3.1.15

15

Illus. 6. Train and boat timetable and routes 37

37

Faith, opp. p. 89 (nd. and no source but post 1918 which was when the train reached Bukama, and

pre 1926 when Rejaf was replaced by Juba as the first upstream port for the Nile boats)

16

1.3 SYNOPSIS

Melbourne academics Jessie Webb and Georgina Sweet sailed from

Melbourne on March 18th

1922 on SS Ulysses 38

and, after stopping briefly in Durban,

arrived in Cape Town on April 16th. They departed from there on 26th

April and

arrived seven months later in Cairo, on the 16th

November 1922.

Their route appears to have been based largely on the existence of steam train

and connecting paddle boat services (see Illus. 6). It took them from South Africa

through Southern and Northern Rhodesia, the Belgian Congo, Tanganyika, Zanzibar,

Kenya, Uganda, the Sudan and into Egypt. They travelled mainly by train and boat

but also on occasion by car and van and in southern Sudan, spent eight days on safari

being carried in a hammock chair, as was the custom at that time (it is possible that

they also did a brief safari in Southern Rhodesia). Visits were made to well-known

institutions, scenic spots, universities to meet professional colleagues, relatives (in

South Africa and Tanganyika) and to people to whom they had letters of introduction

and others to whom they were passed onto. They stayed in private homes, on boats

and trains and occasionally in hotels. On the safari leg they stayed in very basic

government rest houses.

Jessie kept what appears to be a continuous and regular record of their travels

in the form of letters for the first half of the journey and a diary for the Nile leg. There

is also an additional letter written, partly in Alexandria and partly in Athens. Copies

or originals were regularly sent home to Melbourne to family and friends.

The letters and diary are informative, including descriptions of places, events

and people encountered along the way. Jessie demonstrates her inquiring mind by

taking numerous opportunities to discuss political and administrative matters with

colonial officials and business people and reports on them in her communications.

Her keen sense of humour and irony are well illustrated with amusing and sometimes

biting, descriptions of people (which is probably why she didn’t want the letters

distributed too widely).

What maybe a surprise to many is that the journey was not one in which they

hacked their way through jungles and fought off charging elephants and rampaging

‘natives’ with spears etc. Instead, travelling mostly by train and boat, they were

somewhat insulated in a ‘colonial cocoon’, as described in the accompanying paper39

.

However, it was a lengthy journey with often challenging climatic and physical

conditions encountered. One can suspect that Jessie underplayed in her writings just

how basic and unpleasant were some of the conditions they experienced, such as on

the Congo river steamers. The record indicates that both women demonstrated

impressive physical and mental resilience over the seven months and some seven

thousand miles travelled. It is likely that they were buoyed up by the ever-changing

kaleidoscope of sights and experiences, and the sense of achievement as they

completed each stage and gradually moved towards their Cairo goal.

38

Ridley, p. 64, and Jessie’s letter of 30 April also mentions the 18th

March 39

NLA, Rapke, see Part 3.2.15 in this volume

17

1.4 HISTORY OF THE MATERIALS

It would appear from the near pristine state of the diary that it had not seen the

light of day for over eighty years after it was written. This may have been because

Jessie went on to Europe for a year after the Africa journey and did not return to

Australia until early 1924. She was then caught up with both her academic

responsibilities and a round of reporting to women’s and other groups around

Australia on the 1923 League of Nations meeting she had attended. The diary

disappeared into family cupboards after Jessie’s premature death in 1944 and

apparently lay untouched until donated to Melbourne University History Department

(date unknown, probably in 1980s) by relative Barbara Williams (neé Haynes). It was

then passed to the UM Archives in 1997. Initially there was some confusion because

the diary was unsigned and it was catalogued as being “By Persons Unknown”.

Luckily, it was finally identified and placed in Jessie Webb’s archive collection. The

letters appear to have done the rounds of friends and family before they reached

Professor Crawford and then were left in his records, seemingly unrecognized and un-

catalogued until identified by Professor Ridley.

1.5 DESCRIPTION OF THE MATERIALS

The record of the Cape to Cairo journey consists of approximately 50,000 words and

currently includes the following:

Letters40

: The first half of the journey, from Cape Town to Uganda, is described in

about twenty handwritten letters (or parts there-of) which were found by Ridley in

Crawford’s archives. The letters commence in Cape Town on April 16th

1922 and

end at Jinja, Uganda in early October. They were addressed to family members and

friends. They are not a complete set and some are fragments which have, where

possible, been ‘patched’ together by making an educated guess as to their order. Some

are slightly torn, affecting comprehension.

Diary41

: The second half of the journey is described in a cloth bound ‘letter diary’. It

has hard, orange marbled covers, and is about two cms thick. There are 100

numbered, paired pages, one of which is 80gsm paper and the other soft, aerogramme-

like paper. A loose sheet of carbon paper (one sheet still in the diary) was used

between the pages and the hard copy (which was perforated near the edge) then torn

out and posted home to family and friends as a form of letters, with the soft copy in

the diary kept as a record for herself. There is only slight damage to the edge of a

couple of pages and a crease. She wrote in pen or pencil. Page 57 is missing but the

story flows on from page 56 to 58. The writing ends on page 61, with some related

information appearing inside the front and back covers. One hard page is torn out,

leaving only a 5cm strip. The diary is in surprisingly good condition given the delicate

paper, the humid conditions she was travelling in and the eighty-plus years which

have passed, indicating its neglect in the intervening period.

40

Crawford Collection, Box X, Melbourne University Archives 41

Single item, Box 22, 97/37, Melbourne University Archives

18

The Diary provides a commentary on her travels from Jinja in Uganda on 4th

Oct., on

through other parts of Uganda and into the Sudan and Egypt, via the Nile. The writing

stops abruptly in Egypt on 7th

November, in such a way that one would suspect that

there may be a third record written separately because there were thirty-eight pages

left in the diary. A possible explanation for this may be that she put all references to

Egyptian in a separate record because they were work related and/or that she handed

the diary over to Georgie while in Cairo to take back to Australia, as she ie Jessie, was

not returning for another year. There are no conclusions about the journey and nothing

on Cairo, which, according to Georgie’s newspaper interview42

, they reached on 16th

November.

Sixty-two pages were written on a daily basis, with the exception of the 24th October.

Page length varies from one paragraph to five pages, with the majority of entries

(sixteen) being around one to two and a half pages long. Nine entries were less than a

page in length and eight were between three and five pages long. There are also some

writings on the inside of the covers.

An additional letter43

: Another letter, dated 7th

and 9th

December 1922, was found in

Crawford’s archives. It was written partly in Alexandria, Egypt and partly in Athens

after Jessie crossed the Mediterranean. It describes something of what happened

during and after Cairo and the additional information that Georgie “went up the river”

in late November and that Jessie stayed in Cairo until 5th

December then went by train

to Alexandria where she caught the boat to Greece on 7th

/8th

December.

Photographs and Illustrations44

: There is as an ad hoc collection in the Webb records

of a dozen black and white photos from the trip, plus negatives. They would appear

to be ones left over from compiling a photo album which she presumably would have

put together, as was her usual practice (location unknown). The letters and diary

include some small, rough sketches of a Cape roofline, Table Mountain, a head dress,

a hut, a skirt, a tiny map and a hurricane lamp.

The original diary, above mentioned photos and copies of the (known) letters now

reside in the Jessie Webb collection in Melbourne University archives

News and Other Coverage of the Journey 45

: Both Georgie and Jessie were well

known Melbourne identities and consequently received some publicity in newspapers

and magazines over the years, as can be seen from the samples of press coverage in

Part 3.1. Jessie’s return particularly received much coverage because of her

involvement in the League of Nations meeting, but with only the occasional addition

of aspects of the African journey. Julia Rapke46

interviewed Georgina in the 1930s

and that record sheds some light on the journey. A transcript of the relevant parts of

the interview is included in Part Three.

Missing Material: Missing are all letters relating to travel in Southern and Northern

Rhodesia, and parts of letters from all countries along the way. This is presuming that

42

Argus, March 1923 (see Part 3.1.2) 43

With the other letters, Crawford Box X, MUA 44

As above. 45

Thanks to NLA Trove for ease of access 46

Rapke, see 3.1.15

19

Illus.7. Page from a letter, illustrating Jessie’s handwriting

20

she wrote on all visited, which seems very likely. Either some letters went missing on

the way to Australia (and Jessie herself noted in Uganda that she had failed to receive

any return mail from Melbourne from May to September) or else they (or parts there-

of) were misplaced/separated after being passed around her circle of family and

friends. It is not sure if she used a letter diary during the first half of the journey,

although she does vaguely mention one to Effie in her letter of 28th

June when on the

Congo boat.

Insertions: In order to make the record more comprehensible the following insertions

have been made:

- Maps: Jessie sketched only one small map. Others have been added, compiled

from information obtained from existing train and boat routes and other

traveller’s tales, and from Jessie’s descriptions of places visited.

- Rhodesian Section: This author has taken the liberty of inserting descriptions

from other travellers of the period to give some idea of what they would be

likely to have experienced while travelling in Southern and Northern

Rhodesia, using the known train routes and key sites as a basis, as well as

Jessie’s mention of visiting the Morgenster Mission, her comparison of

Elizabethville with Bulawayo and her photograph of a homestead at “(Great)

Zimbabwe”.

- Footnotes: They have been added to identify many as possible of the people

met along the way and also to clarify some terms used and events.

- Extra illustrations: The temptation to include more quotes and photos from

other travellers of the era about places visited, to expand the description or fill

gaps, has been largely, but not wholly resisted for at times they do help to

embellish this traveller’s tale. The insertions include photos and illustrations,

with their sources as referenced.

Description of Writing and Editing Notes: As can be seen from Illustration 7, Jessie’s

writing was generally fluid and legible but the use of pencil and occasional use of

aerogramme type paper, some letters being damaged and working partly from

photocopies meant some words were un-intelligible or partially so. While some can be

guessed from the context, others which are doubtful are marked [?], with the very

occasional, obviously missing words added in square brackets. Where groups of

words are missing that portion is marked [….]. Where a name or word has been

obviously misspelt eg Stillwell or Loderwychkx, it has been corrected.

Because many of the sentences are long they are difficult to immediately make

sense of. Therefore additional commas have been added where needed. Jessie often

used dashes rather than full stops and these have been changed to full stops, again to

aid reading. In the original, the sentences flow on without paragraphs, presumably to

save paper, so they have been inserted. On a couple of occasions a few paragraphs on

one country have been extracted from a later letter about another country and inserted

in her earlier description of that country, in order to maintain the flow.

21

Short summaries have been added to the beginning of each country section

and the name of a particular place being described has been bolded, to aid

comprehension.

Unfortunately it has not been possible to follow up some names or events and

this editor is aware that as soon as this document is placed between covers some

missing items may emerge. However, time is ticking by and it seems practicable to

now wrap the exercise up - despite knowing full well that this might be tempting fate.

22

23

Map 1. The entire route travelled and approximate timing

24

1.6 ROUTE TAKEN AND DURATION OF COUNTRY VISITS

Jessie did not give a summary of the route they travelled, but despite the gaps

in the material it has been possible with a high degree of certainty, to piece it together

based on the place names mentioned and the known train and boat routes of the

period, as can be seen in Illustration 8. As can be seen from Table 2 opposite they

stayed for between approximately two to seven weeks in each country, as evidenced

mainly from the record. Map 1 encapsulates that information.

By going east through Tanganyika, Zanzibar and Kenya they had diverted

somewhat from the classic Cape to Cairo route but ended up in southern Sudan at the

same point as those taking the more direct route, before proceeding down the Nile to

Cairo, as was the common practice.

The journey started off in Melbourne which they departed from on 18 March,

1922 aboard the SS Ulysses, a steamer of 15,000 tons, bound for South Africa.47

After

crossing the Indian Ocean they first called in at Durban before sailing south to Cape

Town, arriving on 16th

April. There they stayed for ten days, including going out to

Stellenbosch and down to Cape Point, finally departing on April 26th

. They then

travelled north-east to the Eastern Cape area by train, including stopping at

Wellington, George, Oudtshoorn and then Grahamstown, the home of Rhodes

College. Turning inland they would have reached the central station of Bloemfontein

on the main line and proceeded north-east to Johannesburg and nearby

Modderfontein, the latter apparently to visit a Webb relative. Ridley notes that an

uncle of Jessie’s, Albert Webb, was a gold engineer in South Africa so it may have

been to visit his family. Continuing north they stopped off at Pretoria and it was near

here that Georgie visited Onderstepoort, the “great ICT lab.”48

Jessie also later

mentioned visiting Aberfeldy which is south of Johannesburg.

After Pretoria they turned back to Johannesburg, then travelled north-west to

Mafeking and across the border into the Bechuanaland Protectorate. Heading north

through the desert they would have then passed through Palapye and Sarule and over

the border to Bulawayo in Southern Rhodesia. From here they made at least one

some side-trip. Returning to Bulawayo they would then have gone north by train to

Victoria Falls and across the famous bridge into Northern Rhodesia. Continuing

north-wards the train would have stopped briefly at Livingstone, Lusaka, Broken Hill

and then the ‘Copperbelt’ towns of Bwana Mkubwa and Ndola.

Departing Northern Rhodesia, the railway line crossed the border into the

Belgian Congo at Sakania, then moved north-west to Elizabethville where they spent

some time, before leaving for Bukama in the north – which was the end of the Cape to

Congo rail line. Here Jessie’s letter records that they boarded a boat on the Lualaba

(the upper reaches of the Congo river) and sailed north on the Kongola then the Louis

Cousin, to Kabola. From there they turned east and travelled by train to Albertville

(now Kalemie) on the edge of Lake Tanganyika.

47

Ridley, p. 64 48

ICT Laboratory was founded in 1908 and is now known as the Agricultural Research Council-

Onderstepoort Veterinary Institute. The world re-known institute still promotes animal health and

welfare by researching southern African veterinary diseases

25

Table 2: Dates, Route, Mode of Transport, Duration and Evidence of Journey

Stages

PLACE AND MODE OF

TRANSPORT

DATES DURATION

(approx.)

EVIDENCE

Melbourne, via Adelaide and

Durban. By ship.

18 March-16 April 1 mth. Letter and Argus

interview

South Africa

Cape Town (and Stellenbosch and

Cape Point) – then east coast,

including Wellington, George,

Oudtshoorn, Grahamstown, then

Bloomfontein, Kimberly,

Johannesburg, Modderfontein,

Pretoria, Aberfeldy, Pretoria and

Mafeking. By train.

Cape Town -16-

26th April, then

travelled NE and

north.

Departed South

Africa late May?

Approx.

6 weeks

Start date is definite,

(letters and Argus).

End date is uncertain.

Bechuanaland, from Mafeking in

SA to Plumtree in SR.

By train.

Early June

Journey takes

approx. x 1 day

(490 miles) 49

No letters known so by

default, train routes, +

the following evidence:

-This was the only train

route north.

- Photo of Great Zim.

homestead,

- Two mentions - Oct.

26th and 22nd June , as

well as Rapke’s

interview

Sth and Nth Rhod.

Bulawayo, (and possibly Matopos

Hills, Masvingo and Great

Zimbabwe), Victoria Falls, Broken

Hill and Bwana Mkubwa. By train

and cart and possibly safari.

SR: Early June -

20 June?

NR: Possibly just

training right

through – 3 days

2 weeks?

Congo

Sakania, Elizabethville, Bukuma,

Kabalo, Albertville.

By train, boat, train and boat.

20 June-10 July 2 ½ weeks? Letters. Start approx.,

end definite, letter

Tanganyika/Zanzibar

Kigoma, Ujiji, Tabora, Dar,

Zanzibar, Tanga.

By train, boat and boat.

11 July – approx.

end of July

3 weeks? Letters. Start definite,

End approx.

Kenya

Mombasa, Nairobi, Nakaru,

Kisimu. By train and car.

Early Aug -20th

Aug

2 1/2 weeks? Letters. Start approx.

End definite.

Uganda

Entebbe, Kampala, Jinga, Masindi,

Butiaba. By boat, car, boat, train,

van and boat.

21Aug-11 Oct. 7 weeks

Including 1 week

in Jinja (25 Sept-4

Nov)

Letters, definite.

Sudan

Nimule, Rejaf, Khartoum,

Atbarah,Wadi Halfa.

By safari, boat, train and boat.

11 Oct.- 6 Nov 3 ½ weeks Diary, definite.

Egypt

Luxor, Cairo and JW departing

Alexandria on 7th Dec. for Greece,

with GS going “up river” about 24th

Nov.

Arrived in Cairo by boat, then by

train to Alexandria.

6 Nov-7 Dec. 1 mth Diary and letter.

GS’s return date in

Argus interview article.

Start and end definite.

49

Faith, opp. p 89

26

After crossing the lake to Kigoma into Tanganyika Territory, they briefly

visited the famous Ujiji on the shores of the lake, and then caught the train east to

Tabora and onto Dar es Salaam on the coast. From there they took a boat for the five

hour trip to Zanzibar. Continuing on again by boat Jessie mentions calling in at

Tanga, which is a coastal city on the boat route from Zanzibar to Mombasa, and

where they met Robert Stobo. He was presumably one of her maternal relatives for

Stobo was a name shared by her grandmother and her mother, and being her own

second name. From Mombasa they caught the train inland to Nairobi, then visited

contacts in various rural places before going on to Kisimu on the edge of Lake

Victoria, from where they caught the SS Clement Hill and sailed across the lake to

Uganda.

After landing at Fort Bell, the port for Entebbe, they then spent time in that

capital before moving onto nearby Kampala. They also visited Toro in western

Uganda, near the Ruwenzori mountains, travelling to and fro by car. Their next leg

was via Jinja at the north end of Lake Victoria (and the source of the Nile) where they

spent a week before catching the train to Namasagali on a line running parallel to the

‘Victoria’ Nile. Here they boarded the SS Speke to travel down the river through Lake

Kyoga to Masindi Port. From there they went west up the hills by truck to Masindi,

then down the escarpment to Butiaba on Lake Albert. The reason for the diversion

from the ‘Victoria’ Nile was the presence of rapids and the very dramatic Murchison

Falls which prevents boats from Lake Victoria being able to travel directly down river

to Lake Albert.

Boarding another boat, the SS Samuel Baker, they went north and out of Lake

Albert into the ‘Albert’ Nile, through very swampy land to Nimule on the southern

border of the Sudan. It was from here that the safari leg of their journey commenced,

being carried in chairs by pairs of men, with Jessie doing some walking as well.

Taking a safari was the usual way to by-pass the many rapids on this part of the Nile

up until 1925, after which time a road was established and a motor van was used.50

Travelling parallel to the Nile they arrived at Rejaf eight days later, having covered

94.2 miles (according to the Public Works Department route notes copied in the back

of Jessie’s diary).

From Rejaf, on the western bank of the Nile, they boarded the Omdurman

which took them south to Khartoum. They then boarded a train to Abu Hamad (again

because of cataracts on the river) and from there crossed the 250 miles of the Nubian

dessert to Wadi Halfa on the Egyptian border, travelling on the line which Kitchener

had built to bypass the cataracts and the river’s large loop, and get military supplies to

his troops. They then caught the Britain down-river to Cairo – perhaps stopping en

route at Luxor and the Valley of the Kings (but for some reason not at Abu Simbel),

because they did not arrive until 16th

December. After staying in Cairo for nearly a

month Jessie caught a train to Alexandria before crossing the Mediterranean to Greece

on 8th

December to start, at long last, her sabbatical.

50

Information obtained from the editor’s history of Cape to Cairo journey’s research .

27

Ridley pointed out in the Memoir51

that it was possible to travel all the way

from Cape to Cairo “in the red” ie through British territories, and it was, unless one

went through the Belgian Congo as Jessie and Georgie did. However, Egypt was

really another exception as it had gained a limited form of independence that same

year (ie 1922) and even the Sudan was held under an Anglo-Egyptian agreement at

that time. Note:52

1.7 LETTER ADDRESSEES

It is clear that the letters were sent to family or to friends. Only five letters had

addressees:

- 16 April - Jennie, Jean Wilkinson, Constance, Ethel Bage, Elizabeth, Enid, Isa,

Ella, Emilie Sonnenberg;

- 28 June - to Effie and Flos;

- 27 Aug. - to Caz[?], Flo, Jenny, Jean Wilkinson, Ethel Bage and Effie;

- 2nd

Sept. - to Beth, Minnie and Effie; and,

- 26 Sept. - to Tom.

There is no such information for the Letter Diary which was used for the second phase

of the journey.

Based on Ridley’s knowledge of her peers and my family information, it appears that

the recipients were:

MU/Lyceum and Catalyst Club friends/colleagues:

“Flos”– Grata Flos Greig; Flo - Florence Wrigley or Flo Stillwell?; “Constance”/

“Connie” – Ellis; “Elizabeth” Lothian; “Enid” - Derham; “Ida” Wilson (Latham);

“Ada” - Griffiths; “Ella” - Eleanor Tobin/Latham; and, “Sheila” – Gilfillan.

“Jenny” and ?“Caz” - unknown.

“Ethel Bage”, “Jean Wilkinson” and “Emilie Sonnenberg” are clear.

“Effie” and “Flo” may have been the Stillwell sisters (of Frank).

Family:

“Beth, Minnie and Effie” – probably her cousins Elizabeth Fulton (Maconachie) and

Wilhelmina Fulton, and possibly her aunt Josephine Thomson Watson (Scott) – unless

“Effie” was Stillwell but she was not family and it would seem likely that Jessie

would have grouped her friends and family separately.

“Tom”/ “Thomas” – possibly her cousin Thomas Fulton.

51

Ridley, p. 67 52

Jessie reported in her letter of 7th

Dec. that “Georgie went up the river”, without saying why but

possibly it was to reach Atbara junction in the Sudan and then to go east by train to Port Sudan which

was a major port on the Red Sea, and a fuelling port of call for the PO liners on the Australian route,

used alternatively with Bombay52

.The area east of Atbara was a famous cotton growing area so it is

possible that Georgie had organized to meet there with agricultural scientists. From Port Sudan she

could have caught a ship but as she didn’t arrive back in Australia until the 28th February 1923 on the

RMS Narkunda, according to the Argus52

, it is possible that she stopped off in India and/or Ceylon

while en route. But this is just speculation.

28

1.8 COMMENTARY (a short version of what appears in my forthcoming paper but provided

here because it offers some explanations about what the journey was about)

A review of the travel literature shows that it was unusual, but not unique, to

undertake such a journey in the early 1900s. Certainly by the thirties this route was

very popular with Europeans and Americans (and some Australians), especially once

cars and small planes were able to complete the journey.53

However, on current

information (ie of those who have written about their journey) it appears that Jessie

and Georgie were amongst the earliest of such European travellers (and females)

completing the whole route purely for the sake of travel. The existence of the rail and

connecting river service (see Illus. 7) made such a journey perfectly feasible (although

depending on where and what date, because the rail only crept north very slowly but

surely, only reaching Bukama in the Congo in 1918).

Other European women also travelled widely in the region from as early as the

1800s but few completed the whole south to north (or vice versa) journey – and

published.54

They included wives and daughters of missionaries , colonial officials

and traders, and also nurses and single missionaries. They also had even more

remarkable tales to tell, like Ruth Fisher55

(whose mission Jessie and Georgie visited)

because they were there longer and often living and travelling in much more difficult

circumstances than the Melbournians’ experienced.

At first glance it seems unlikely that two female academics would consider

undertaking such a journey but there is some evidence which provides a probable

rationale, which will be discussed in more detail in my forthcoming paper. An extract

is relevant here:

“One can’t but help wonder where the idea of travelling through Africa came from as

it would appear to be a very unusual idea for two Australian, middle-aged, women to

come up with. While it is not explained explicitly in the record there is some evidence

to support the idea that it was probably Georgie’s idea and that Jessie, who was

planning to go Greece in 1923 for a sabbatical, was enlisted as a travelling

companion”

Evidence for this idea will follow but firstly it is useful to make a couple of

other points. While both women were active in the Lyceum Club and other women’s

organizations and were very much part of the strong group of early women graduates,

it appears that they were not especially close friends before the journey. This is

evidenced by the reference in the Cape Town letter, to “How are they getting on…?”

This is not all that surprising as one was wealthy, on the social circuit, a scientist and

a strong, teetotal Methodist, the other of far more modest means, a historian, a non-

believer and at least an occasional wine drinker and smoker. Consequently, apart from

their involvement in the Lyceum Club activities, they often moved in quite different

social circles. It seems that Georgie may have asked around their Melbourne friends

53

O’Callaghan, Commentary and Analysis, forthcoming 54

O’Callaghan, Cape to Cairo Tables (unpublished), 2010 55

Fisher, 1905

29

for someone to accompany her on her “dream journey” (see Rapke56

). Jessie herself

said, half-jokingly, while in Pretoria: “I doubt if she would choose me again as a

travelling companion”. Jessie was planning to take study leave for the first time in

eleven years and seems to have been persuaded to join her, thereby meeting both

Georgie’s need for a companion and her own need to get to Greece. Presumably she

was partially attracted by the possibility of seeing some relatives and especially the

various antiquities while en route. As it turned out, they arrived in Egypt within weeks

of Tutankhamun’s tomb being unearthed (November 1922), which was a highly

publicised event and which must have been particularly thrilling for Jessie. An

additional reason may have been that such a diversion meant less travel by boat – a

probable attraction for Jessie given her tendency to seasickness (although in fact the

trip involved nine, albeit short, boats trips).

Evidence that the trip was Georgie’s idea appears in Jessie’s comments about

how Georgie was regarded on board the ship from Melbourne – “The fame of her

(emphasis added) trip had preceded her and people were remarkably interested.” …”.

In Uganda she remarked that Georgie “... is looking forward – generously but

maddingly – to “losing myself in your pleasures Jess, when we get to Egypt.” This

statement seems to be about Georgie being embarrassed about how thrilled Jessie was

going to be when they reached the land of ancient Egyptian antiquities, as if the

earlier travel had been more for her own delight, visiting veterinary institutions and

seeing Victoria Falls and so on. It also apparent that Georgie paid for some elements

of the journey which Jessie, with her limited means, would not have been able to

afford eg for the askari, the personal staff and the safari.”

But the big question is why did Georgie want to undertake such an unusual

journey? There is evidence of personal reasons, a hint of which are evident in Rapke’s

interview 57

but also from a more public context - which is described in my

forthcoming paper.

A further background point is that the Cape to Cairo route was well

established by 1922 (with some variations on it), largely because of the extensive

mining activities in the Congo and the Rhodesia’s. It involved travel by train, boat,

and, up until the mid-1920s, undertaking a short safari in southern Sudan. Although it

was never possible to complete the entire journey by train this was largely the route of

Rhodes’ vision, and it was regularly used by businessmen and colonialists to get

through to Cairo and then ‘home’ to Europe. And Jessie and Georgie were therefore,

able to benefit from this business oriented infrastructure.

56

Rapke, nd. See 3.1.15 57

As above

30

31

Map 2: South Africa route.

32

PART 2. TRANSCRIPTS

2.1. TRANSCRIPT OF LETTERS

SOUTH AFRICA

These letters, or fragments thereof, provide a report on the first phase of the journey,

describing their activities in South Africa. The following letter provides an overview

of their movements there so it is placed first to ease clarification.

Introduction

30th

April 1922

For those of you who desire real information as to what we are doing, and not my

scattered comments in the jumble that I have already written, and which follows this,

let me state categorically, that the trip so far, is in 3 parts:

(1) The voyage, including interludes at Adelaide and Durban. It lasted 18th

March-16th

April, was very rough at times and for me, had only one redeeming

feature, the nice people with whom we became friendly. These were Mrs

Hordern, Mr and Mrs Parker, Mr and Mrs Nelson, Mr Mendoza, Dr Wardy the

Chief Engineer, Mr and Mrs Falkiner, Mr Evans and Mrs Giovanetti. A Dr

Bramwell and Mrs Martin were occasional visitors also, and both interesting.

(2) Our stay in Cape Town 16th

-26th

April. This included one long trip outside to

Cape Point (the left of the Cape of Good Hope) and another to Stellenbosch.

We fell in love with the picturesquesness of Capetown where the ubiquitous

family of van der Stel seems to have set the fashion of planting oaks as well as

at Stellenbosch. Oaks alone, firs alone, or oaks and firs mixed, make the roads

just outside the city delightfully restful to the eye, but local people do not

appreciate our enthusiasm. They say their own native trees should have been

preserved instead. The firs especially, are deeply unpopular as they destroy

flower and insect life and the flowers of the Cape in September and October

are the joy of all the inhabitants.

Table Mt is glorious with them and all around, save where the firs are. The

trees and the easily accessible mountain, the pretty voices and comparatively

pretty accent of the folk one meets and the general politeness, are what I most

envy about Capetown. On the other hand, girls are not so free to go about alone at

night as ours and neither are they as good looking or as well dressed. Finally the

water, tho’ pure we are told, is, we know to look at, like weak coffee.

(3) Our final beginning, so to speak, of the great journey. We left Capetown last

Wednesday and stayed overnight at Wellington at the Huguenot College, to

members of which we had an introduction. There are four Universities in the

Union: Capetown, Stellenbosch, Johannesburg (ordinary self-contained

33

universities like Melbourne) and the University of South Africa, a federation

of scattered colleges: the Huguenot College (women generally and a few local

men), Rhodes College at Grahamstown and another part at Pretoria. The

Huguenot College was founded years ago by religious Americans, and still has

an American lady as Principal – otherwise a cosmopolitan group of women,

Dutch, Australian, English and American teach there.

A Miss Brown, who is a cousin of Mr I. Hunt, gave us breakfast in bed and we

foregathered happily the evening before with a selected group, including Miss Newell

from Smith College, who knows Prof Abel. But the place is not a university and that’s

that. I know a lovely story about Dear Susan there, but you can ask Marnie Masson

for it. From Wellington, we rushed up to see the Hex river, and then, turning on our

tracks, spent a night in the train to reach George, whence we made a circular tour by

car just to see beauty spots. Pretoria and Johannesburg are our objectives, after that

we are out of the Union into Rhodesia and a fresh phase will have begun.

Gelah,58

…

To Jennie, Jean Wilkinson, Constance, Ethel Bage, [Flo?], Elizabeth, Enid, Ida, Ella,

Emilie Sonnenberg [all names scored through except for Ella and Emilie]

International Hotel

Capetown

Sunday 16th

April 1922

Dear Folk,

As nothing of any real interest has occurred, this letter is written merely to

give myself the pleasure of addressing you all, and of making you attend to me for a

moment or so without regard to the information I haven’t to give.

As I write, a darkie beau has just marched past my window, in swagger

pinchback59

coat, soft hat, shining tan leggings and carrying a whip. A little out of the

city you meet swarms – or perhaps that is too strong a word here – at least numbers of

whining, black beggar children reminding one of Colombo: in the streets the heavy

loads are carried by blacks: In the hotel there are white waitresses and black

waitresses. Altogether it is most confusing and after one and a half days in Capetown

I cannot hope to tell you what are the relations of black and white here! In semi-

tropical Durban, distinctions were clearer, and as even in a couple of days we saw

something of the ‘mean white’, of the Zulus and of the pervasive Indian element, we

were conscious directly of a black problem and of some of the complicated forms it

can assume. However, not being in a fit state to discuss problems, let me tell you

unintelligently, what we have unintelligently being doing.

58

A farewell? 59

Having a close-fitting or pleated back, belted in jacket

34

Georgie, from time to time, has had bad, but apparently short, attacks of

neuritis60

. As a rule, she can be made to forget it by any little excitement, and as she

was very popular on board, someone or other was always coming along for a gossip

and often the talk was of Africa. The fame of her trip had preceded her and people

were remarkably interested. Yesterday, when we were coming away from seeing the

boat off, a man who had paraded the deck but never spoken, presented her with his

card and requested the comfort of a postcard to say that we had got through safely.

Others, notably a Mr Evans and a Mr Nelson, both District Commissioners,

one in German East and one in Uganda, were less shy and more useful, warning about

all sorts of adventures and throwing no cold water on our schemes. Mr Nelson we

shall probably meet again as we visit Kampala, his headquarters. If so, he will arrange

for us a “safari, so entrancing that we dare not think of it for fear it falls through. And

as he is away on ‘safari’ himself (with his family of wife and two children) every third

month, of course we may be unlucky enough to miss him. Nethertheless, we know

how to set about travel in those parts now, and we were lucky indeed, to sail on the

same boat as he did. As a matter of fact, on nearer acquaintance, everything seems

easy – but not cheap – to arrange, with the one exception of the Belgian Congo. That

trip promises to be extraordinary comfortless. But over and above this there are hints,

first from Mr Brebner, and second, from a letter to Georgie from Dr Stillwell61

, of a

disagreement between Belgians and British. I don’t know whether it is over the

mandated territory or not, but Mr Brebner is emphatic in his dislike of their officials

and Dr Stillwell states baldly, there is friction. We shall, no doubt, solve the mystery

later. Emilie with her international spirit, may be glad to think of us as two guileless

rays of sunshine, uniting the outposts of the two nations with our innocent prattle. Ida

may thrill to think of us arrested as the spies of perfidious Albion62

– tho’ of course

we’ll be cleared in the end.

Illus. 8. “Women washing Umgeni River, Durban” (JW)

60

Neuritis, an old generic term for inflammation of nerves

52 Probably Frank Stillwell (1888-1963) who studied Geological Sciences at MU from 1911,

qualifying with a DSc in 1916. His two sisters, Effie and Florence were part of Jessie’s academic

cohort, having graduated in 1901 and 1903 respectively (and it is thought, were recipients of some of

Jessie’s letters). Stillwell visited mining fields in South Africa and other places in 1922/23 (ADB).

Another probably connection is that Georgie’s father was a keen amateur geologist with an extensive

fossil collection and was President of the Royal Society of Victoria (1905) 62

Perfidious Albion, a hostile epithet for England, indicating not keeping one’s faith

35

24th

April

Alas! Alas! Why did I not finish this letter while there was still nothing to tell?

I am sure I could have made it interesting, while we have done so much that interests

us that either I must merely narrate facts – send you a pemmican63

letter, or exercise

my powers of selection which, after a day like today, are practically non-existent.

Some thirty miles from Capetown is a little valley called Stellenbosch. Its

inhabitants are mainly Dutch – both by extraction and sentiment, or rather, I should

say, they are anxious to preserve the un-British character of the place. They have

always been, I believe, touchy towards Holland, as well as England. There is a

University there, as well as the one in Capetown, lectures are generally given in

Africans (sic) (Cape Dutch). Mrs Lodewyckz tells me it thinks itself the Athens of

South Africa. Nearby is the Agricultural College of Elsenberg, and both there and at

the Scientific Departments of the Stellenbosch University, there are several British

and American professors.

Well, Georgie wanted to see certain scientific folk there – a Dr Petty of

Cornel[?] at the Agricultural College of Elsenberg nearby, Professor Goddard (an

Australian Zoologist) and Dr Brain, interested in Entomology like herself. Dr

Lodewyckx64

had given us a letter of introduction, also to Professor Blommaert, their

history man,65

while from Sir Henry Jones66

we had one to Lord de Villiers - Lord

Percy de Villiers,67

and in real life too. So off we went to prosecute our enquiries.

Breakfast at 7am. Arrival at Agricultural College at 10am. Departure from

Agricultural College at 10.45am. Arrived at Stellenbosch at 11.30am and there found

things rather complicated. Professor Goddard and Professor Blommaert had at once

replied to our letters and each had bidden us both to lunch. We had replied saying;

arrange it as you will. Lord de Villiers had apparently taken no notice till late on the

night before he had sent us a telephone message, to which we could not reply between

10 pm and 7am. But at the station, Lady de Villiers awaited us with her car, and also a

formidable frown on her aristocratic young countenance when she learnt that we had

made other arrangements by proxy. So she said “Go to Professor Goddard. I shall do

some shopping and then call for you to take you to lunch. She stiffened my un-

aristocratic back and I said I feared lunch was arranged, but I would come shopping

with her while Georgie went at once with Prof G’s black boy who had also met us. So

63

Pemmican is a nutritious emergency foodstuff used by explorers and armies 64

Augustin Lodewyckx (JW spelt it with a ‘z’) (1876-1964), Assoc. Prof. German at MU in 1922,

previously worked at Victoria College, Stellenbosch and in the Belgian Congo (ADB) 65

Willem Blommaert (1886-1934), Flemish born, took up the professorship of History at Stellenbosch

in 1911. He was “a scientific historian, researchers and inspiring teacher… a man of rare intellectual

gifts and unusual quality of character… modest.” His father was Karel Lodewyck Blommaert,

obviously making him a relative of Dr Lodewyckx, see fn 55. (Dictionary of South African Biography) 66

Sir Henry Jones (1862-1926), a very successful Hobart businessman who had extensive fruit/jam

export related connections with South Africa. According to Warren Glover, Guest Services and History

Liaison officer, Sir Henry Jones Art Hotel Hobart, 2009, Sir Henry had family in Melbourne so often

visited there, he was a strong Methodist and had professional interests in agricultural-related parasites

and quarantine issues. These facts make for three possible connections with Georgie 67

Percy de Villiers (1871-1934) 2nd

Baron of Wynberg in the Cape of Good Hope Province and the

Union of South Africa. His father was Chief Justice of the Union 1910-1914.

36

we went round the village, Lady de Villiers driving, getting out to get paper, groceries

etc just as one has to do in our country towns like Healesville.

It is a beautiful old Dutch place with its typical white buildings thatched with close

cropped, dark thatch and with the usual curved gables.68

Water runs down the sides of

the streets and oaks planted, on the example of old van der Stel (whose wife was

Bosch), are every-where.

Illus. 9. Sketch of Cape Dutch roofline (JW)

When we reached Prof. Goddard’s lab I found that Georgie, who is easily

bullied by all save her wedded wife69

, had implored him to change his arrangements

to let us go to the de Villiers. So her ladyship bore us off triumphantly, but having got

us to her very charming home, she neglected us for a lioness who arrived later. This

was an extremely attractive looking American lady, Mrs Deborah Knox Livingston70

,

who has a great reputation for eloquence. She is conducting a prohibition campaign.

Lady de Villiers is a supporter and had invited a cohort of suffragists (sic) cum

prohibitioners to spend the day. So imagine, your injured cobbers, who might have

been guests of honour themselves at the Blommaerts or Goddards, being mere ballast

while Mrs Livingstone and suite were the passengers de luxe. However, one of the

guests greatly enjoyed a chocolate with liqueur in it, and Lord de Villiers paid me the

subtle attention of giving me an old title deed to look at. Joking apart, it was

interesting enough. The farm, as they call it, is really an orchard in our usage. By the

way, under the influence of his wife, he is getting rid of a large number of vines,

keeping the others for fruit71

and to make raisins.72

But we had to spend the rest of the day in placating various people whose little

plans for us had had to be re-arranged to fit in with this luncheon. The rest of the trip

was mainly of technical interest. I learnt how history courses are conducted at that

University and met various professors and one woman lecturer, a Miss Le Roux, with

whom I should fain have had more conversation.

68

The house is shown in “Colonial Houses of South Africa”, A. Proust and G. Viney, Struik Pub., 2000 69

A joking remark perhaps related to Jessie playing a protective role given the precarious state of

Georgie’s health at the start of the journey 70

Mrs Knox Livingston was a well-known American orator and suffragette and temperance

campaigner who spent six months in South Africa that year furthering those causes. It is thought that

she was born in Scotland in Sept 10, 1876. She died, surely prematurely, in Cape Cod in 1923.

http://news.google.com/newspapers 71

This would appear to explain the connection with Sir Henry Jones who was also a major fruit

exporter 72

This probably relates to the prevailing practice of paying farm staff partly in wine which contributed

significantly to the prevalence of alcoholic problems in the region

37

The names Le Roux and de Villiers, by the way, point to the Huguenot

immigration into South Africa. De Villiers, all un-connected with each other, are

commoner in some parts than Smiths. We arrived home at 6.45pm after a fairly full

day, two lots of teas and much conversation.

Professor Blommaert was rather obviously hostile to Britain. He is a Belgian

and this brings me back near to where I started. After I began this letter, we found we

had to go to the Belgian Consul to get our passports endorsed. He lives in a most

attractive house, sideways on the street so that you step up onto one end of his stoep

(veranda, in his case, roofless) and walk the whole long length, in front of French

widows, to the front door. The whole is shaded by giant oaks and the relief from the

most monotonous regularity of our villa arrangements was very great. The Consul, a

jolly little fat man, saw we could easily do our trip to the Congo, but must have

money and a certificate that we had no infectious diseases. Vain were our smallpox

certificates, vain our injections for typhoid, paratyphoid A, and paratyphoid B.

Tuberculosis and Scrofula73

etc, are the objects of their silly investigations. So off we

set in search of a woman doctor. We could hear of none. G. was not inconsolable, but

I persevered and finally we discovered Dr Jane Waterston74

, a thin, ascetic old lady,

with short silver hair curling round her ears, and, but for that one bend, unbending.

Her head shook all the time with age, but she seemed all there about her work. At all

events she knew that we had not Scrofula or tuberculosis and shared my indignation

that the dirty old Congo, with every skin disease imaginable, should dare to ask us if

we had any. She had qualified in Belgium and many other places, and had the queerly

fresh atmosphere about her, that pioneer women so often have – a fact I believe

mentioned by Gissing in his “God Women”75

. But what amused me was that she had

sentimental medical pictures about the room – doctor by children’s bedsides, and

such. It seems she began as a missionary. There are other women doctors, but few are

in general practice; mostly they are doing inspection or working with the missionaries.

On the other hand, the beautiful Michaelis Gallery76

has a women sculptor,

Mrs Thomas, as director. A woman has an important position as assistant in charge of

the famous Cape Archives, and there is, I think, more general camaraderie, among

men and women students than with us. A bill to admit women to the legal profession

has just passed the second reading. Of course there are several women lecturers, and

one of these, Miss Stevens, who has a position like that of Miss McClennan at our

University, took me up the Lion’s Head last Sunday, while Georgie was at her

relatives.

73

A bacterial TB infection of the neck 74

Dr Waterston (1843 -1932) had come out to South Africa from Scotland initially as a mission teacher

at Lovedale School and then returned to England and Belgium to train as a doctor. She was regarded to

be one of SA’s most remarkable women, was given an impressive funeral and has a street named after

her in Pretoria. She was seventy-nine when Jessie met her. It is curious that Jessie didn’t seem to pick

her Scottish background. 75

“God Women”, by George Gissing, 1857-1903 He was the earliest English writer to formulate the

intellectual’s case against mass culture – and wrote on the position of women 76

It has not been possible to establish a specific relationship between this Michaelis to Alice Michaelis

who was one of Jessie’s closest Melbourne friends, apart from a common German heritage. The

Michaelis collection still exists, housed in the former City Hall (the Old Town House) built in 1755 in

Cape Rococo style. Donated by Sir Max Michaelis in 1914, it consists of a world-renowned selection

of Nederlandish art from the seventeenth-century Golden Age

38

Illus. 10. Sketch of Table Mountain (JW)

Capetown has, as a background, Table Mountain and is partly embraced by its

two flanking peaks, the Devil’s Peak and the Lion’s Head. The youth of the city has

therefore every opportunity to be walkers for there are easy routes up, harder ones,

difficult ones and dangerous ones. In addition there are pleasant walks around about

the slopes. One does not go up alone, however, if a stranger, because of the fog. This

letter is being written in all sorts of places at all times. Today is Saturday and we are

on the train. Last Sunday then, Miss Stevens, a Miss de Villiers doing her last year at

the university, Olive Schreiner’s77

husband and myself, also Olive Schreiner’s

husband’s dog, climbed the Lion’s head, an exploit which your little friend, after a

month of lying on a deck chair, found somewhat strenuous at times, especially when

she had to clamber up rocks with the aid of chains. As she was arranged in breeches

and a jumper, she survived, and cracked hardy to the athletic young things who had

arranged the trip. Next day she had a pain above each knee but said nothing till Miss

Stevens commented on her own suffering in that respect. The dog hated the trip, lay

on its back in awkward crevices and waved its legs, but its master was resolute and

brought it up and down the steep parts successfully.

Mr Schreiner would have been interesting could one have listened to him

longer. I nearly wrote ‘talked to him’ but that was the last thing he or any other man I

have met on this trip, except a Mr Parker, could have tolerated. He talked interestingly

when I could hear him, which was when we rested. He thinks the curse of his country

is gold and diamonds, and he is a devotee of his wife’s. He is writing her life and

bringing out her last book The Camel Horn, which he says, has a prologue in most

perfect English and is all altogether her best work. So look out for it. He also said his

wife’s energy was perfectly amazing. The only person he had ever met who came near

to her – none had ever equalled her, in that respect, was Oom Paul78

. He told us a true

story of Kruger and a lion which you can perhaps swallow if you break off here and

make a separate chapter.

77

He was in fact Olive’s widower of two years, Samuel Cronwright, a lawyer and politically active

farmer who had adopted her name and published a number of books after her death, but none with this

name. 78

Stephanus Johannes Paulus Kruger (1825-1904), known as Oom Paul, 5th

President of the Republic

of South Africa (Transvaal), 1883-1900.

39

x x x x 79

Story of Oom Paul, the Zulu, the Lion and the Buck

When Oom Paul was a young man at Rustenberg (the mountains look on the

de Villier’s ‘farm’) he was famed for his strength, his courage and his fleetness of

foot. He was a mighty hunter and had no need to lie about his deeds!

One day it was decided to have a race, Zulu against White man, the prize to be

two oxen, the course a long day’s run round the great Rustenburg Mountains. And

Ooom Paul was chosen as the White champion. The Zulu wore only a loin cloth, so

Oom Paul dressed as scantily as he could, and carried nothing. The two men started, it

was not a sprint race but a long trial of endurance and they soon lost sight of one

another. At last Kruger came to a cottage and asked for coffee. The man gave it to him

but said, ‘You are mad to carry no gun, and there are lions here.’ But, said Kruger, I

must win the race. I want the two oxen that are the prize. ‘Still’ said the man, ‘You

must have a gun’. So Kruger set out running again, this time laden with a weapon. By

and by he saw the high grass moving. He thought that is a Buck. I shall kill it and

carry it home with me! So he got ready. But it was a lion. Oom Paul thought, well, I

will kill him, tho’ I cannot carry him home. And he fired, but it was a flash in the pan

only. It was an old sort of gun, I forget the technicalities, but the way I have begun my

sentences with ‘And’ and ‘So’, should have made you realize, even if you don’t know

when Kruger was a young man, that this story refers to a long time ago and a modern

sort of gun would be an anachronism). And so there was Kruger, defenceless and the

lion 100 feet from him. So Kruger thought ‘I am finished! But I will try. I’ll stand

still’. So he stood still, leaning on his gun. The lion leapt, once. Kruger stood stock

still. He leapt again nearer, and Kruger still stood still. He then leapt a third time, and

the gravel where he dug his claws in, flew up and hit Kruger in the face. Then the lion

went away.

Oom Paul put his gun to rights and went on. Soon he saw the grass moving

again. This time it was a buck so Oom Paul shot it and carried it home and yet was the

first back from the race around the mountain and won the two oxen.

x x x x x 80

The two girls and I went on for a further ramble after Mr Schreiner had left us

on the slopes of the Lion, and came (at a most undignified run, I regret to say) down

Signal Hill into what was once the oldest part of Dutch Capetown and is now

relegated to Malays and natives. On our way we passed a Malay tomb – a brick

enclosure over which we could, without staring in, catch a mere glimpse of a Malay

wearing a fez and intoning a monotonous, but musical sort of dirge or litany. Further

down, in their quarter, we saw veiled women and one child wearing a fez, who I am

sure, was European. We are told that the Malays are very keen on getting white

children, girls or boys. They treat them kindly, it is said, and poor people or

79

Her notations 80

Her notations

40

illegitimate parents often let them have their babies. I know not the truth of it; at all

events there is a great meeting of races here and some queer modifications of custom.

Over and over again I have seen veiled women, otherwise dressed in modern

European fashion, and two of them, I saw one day, joined and cheerily greeted by a

Malay who walked off with them in comradely fashion. That would not happen in

India or Egypt would it? Of course, now I come to think of it, I don’t know how

Malays and Mohammedans do treat their women in Malaya.

By the paper I see that by leaving Capetown when we did, we just missed

seeing an interesting ceremony. The Malay fast or festival, I forget, which began on

Friday and members were going to assemble at Three Anchor Bay, just near the city,

to greet the new moon.81

Thanks to my cabin companion, a Mrs Giovanetti, we were able to go to the

House of Assembly and hear some of the discussion on the Indemnity Bill82

.

Hertzog83

had his back to us, but Smuts84

was opposite and was interesting to watch.

Georgie was much touched to see him smile at his wife during the debate. But the

whole business struck me - as it does at home – as pretty futile. Hardly anyone listens

to what opponents had to say and the way votes would be cast was almost a foregone

conclusion. The Labour man who spoke, struck me as being deeply in earnest, but

irrelevant to the point immediately at issue. A Nationalist speaker spoke in Dutch and

apparently indulged in personalities that caused laughter. Patrick Duncan85

, the

Ministerialist, was clever – surely there is a cheaper way of doing business than this,

in cases where votes are not changed by speeches. It was fun tho’ for an outsider to

observe the half-hearted union between Labour and the Nationalists against the

Government. The Dutch are by no means progressive here in economic matters and

the Labour leader’s allusion to capital were not relished by his Nationalist colleagues

in the least. We left at 11am before Smuts spoke, but as he spoke in Dutch on this

occasion, we probably should not have been able to judge if his reputation for

eloquence is deserved. His energy is certainly extraordinary – he reached

Johannesburg during the Rand troubles in thirty hours they tell us. It takes three days

by train.

Perhaps you may have gathered from all this that we have been fairly

energetic. We really have, for I have not told you of our many excursions, and our

meal with, eg. the Dutch consul and his wife, Mrs Lodewyckx and her Swedish

family86

and Norwegian friends. Nor of our departure from Capetown last

81

Ramadan commenced on 28 April in 1922 82

Indemnity Bill, by which the Government intended to compensate those persons who were engaged

in military operations and were injured during the recent disturbances on the Rand

http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/28166797 83

J.B.M. Hertzog (1866-1942), 3rd

Prime Minister of South Africa (1924-39), Boer General and

parliamentarian 84

Jan Christiaan Smuts (1870-1950), Prime Minister 1919-1924 and 1939-48, statesman, philosopher

and military leader. He designed the League of Nations and wrote the Preamble to the UN Charter 85

Sir Patrick Duncan (1870-1943), Part of “Milner’s Kindergarten”, administrator and attorney,

Minister for Education, Interior and Public Health at the time of Jessie’s visit and Governor-General,

1937-1943 86

Anna Sophia Lodewyckx, neé Hansen, wife of Dr. Lodewyckx, who, incidentally, was the mother of

Karel (UM librarian) and Dymphna (wife of Manning Clark, the historian, who had been one of

Jessie’s students)

41

Wednesday, our night at the Huguenot College which is part of the scattered federal

University of South Africa – our view of the Hex Valley pass or our all night trip to

this place (Since the ink began I have been staying with George at the George Hotel at

George).

And we have been in Africa – I mean finally landed there, for just a fortnight

and a day. Georgie is certainly a goer, and could you see our timetable in which trains

brings us to a temporary destination at 11am and take us from there at 3.15pm87

next

morning with rather painful frequency, you would tremble for her. At first I tried to

apply the brake, but when I found that her idea of a rest was for us both to sort our

letters of introduction, write covering notes for them and then re-pack luggage, I

withdrew the brake and said, The Spur for me. If we are going to over-do things, let it

be nice things. But Mrs Lodewyckx was struck with the improvement in Georgie’s

appearance and as she saw her just before we left for Africa within a week of each

other, her testimony is worth having. Mrs Lodewyckx, by the way, is a most attractive

person, and on her return to Melbourne I think you should cultivate her tho how she

ever m……………………………………ye!88

Another, I would fain comment to you all, is Mrs Hordern, quite the most

attractive woman on the boat and an acquisition if you can lure her into our inner

circle. Georgie and I hope she may join us in Egypt. On the other hand, she may be

coming back to Australia quite soon. We were lucky on the boat, had a jolly little set

of whom I wrote to Sheila and she may have handed on items. It seems that we were

referred to by the others on the boat, not our set, as “the learned ladies”, “but they are

so nice, really they are” was one addendum reported to us.

Illus. 11. “The Horderns at Ferndene Hotel, Durban”.

89 (Jessie is on the right)

87

Her am’s and pm’ s may be mixed up 88

Her notations. 89

According to Ridley, based on the ship’s passenger list, they were Miss M. E. Hordern, aged 17 and

Mr P.A. Hordern, aged 19, the children of Mrs A. Hordern, aged 45 years. They were possibly part

of the Hordern merchant family of Sydney, although seemingly living in Melbourne.

42

The Chief Engineer, who was about my own height and quite squat, was the

object of my affections – as usual unrequited, he having many children and an

ever more superfluous wife. So when we went down this day for twilight to

see the boat off, I entrusted him with some doggerel on our intimates, to hand

to one of them when the Ulysses was well out from port. His kind jolly face

beamed – he didn’t know what was in it – and he said; ‘I’ll put it in a wireless

envelope and re-address it’. So naturally I thought that I had got my Parthian

shot in last, but no. On the following Tuesday morning a real wireless arrived

for me which ran: Thus:

Two learned ladies, bright and jolly

Set out for Cairo – surely folly.

But if the blacks their ways are blocking,

Their money’s safe; ‘T’is in their stocking.

Our only comfort is, it must have cost a lot.

Well I hope you have read this, as it has been written in small doses.

Otherwise it will have bored you that I should repet. I suppose most of you are

wondering the indiscreet wonder – how are they getting on? As far as I am concerned,

I have been infuriated only once, and that, was when my first photographs with THE

CAMERA were developed. They were straight; they were on separate films; no one

was beheaded, but they were void of all possible human interest and George seeing

them, and not seeing my expression, said amicably. “I think they are splendid for a

beginner”. She got bitten violently and retired to a corner to lick her wounds. I did not

see that my having taken them was anything to do with it. I did not want to be

soothed. They were bad photographs and I was stricken to the heart. For if I took bad

ones with that camera, what would I do with another one? However, they are better

now, and when Georgie asked me for one the other day to enlarge it, I mopped up the

flattery in all innocence and agreed graciously, and I suddenly realised I’d lost my

sense of humour.

Love to you all from Jess.

Illus. 12. “Rickshaw driver with head-dress, snapped from rickshaw” (in Durban) (JW)

43

Fragment, only last two pages, about Oudtshoorn and Port Elizabeth in the Eastern

Cape, before going inland again, this time to Grahamstown, the home of Rhodes

College where it is presumed they also met professional colleagues.

[…………………… ] University, a sum was raised equivalent to 10/- per head for

man, woman and child, white and coloured, in the Cape Province. I was amazed, first

at this response, secondly at such an American method being adopted.

On our way to visit Grahamstown we stayed at Oudtshoorn, where Cooks90

commanded us to visit the Canga Caves. I hate caves but was dutifully collecting

boots etc suitable for the visit when it occurred to me to ask Georgie did she like these

underground marvels. She told me that she was just going to peep in as she feared the

damp. So I inquired why we were going. She looked rather startled at such

agnosticism but finally agreed that as we’d both seen caves and didn’t care if we

never saw any more (excepting ones with Palaeolithic drawings in them) we thought

we might as well go and see an ostrich farm instead. So we did and were shown over

by a Miss Fourie, who was full of pride that out of the twenty-eight feathers which

composed a fan sent by the district to Princess Mary, fourteen were chosen from her

father’s contribution.

Mr Fourie was away, unluckily; he is farming ostriches most intelligently it

seems and has succeeded in growing naturally curly feathers which do not ever

become quite straight. The farms are quite small – seventy acres is a biggish one in

the Oodtshoorn district, and actually pays better than dairy farming to keep even two

ostriches for breeding purposes. This of course is not necessarily true for other parts

but Miss Fourie told us that, even now in the slump period, ostriches still pays them

better than any other form of farming. All the hen birds are greyish in colour, the

cocks black and white, so we were interested to see in the Port Elizabeth Museum

afterwards, a big black bird labelled a hen ostrich. Full of curiosity, we read a long

notice beside it which said that an experiment had been tried and when the ovaries of

the hen bird had been removed, they had turned black like the cocks. So it is a

question now for farmers which they want their hens for most – black feathers or

more ostriches.

We are constantly running into, without being able to stay to hear, Mrs Knox

Livingstone, a most attractive looking American lady who is touring the Union in the

interests of Prohibition, with which she links up women’s suffrage. Like all women

who haven’t the vote, her supporters here have the rosiest of views of what can be

effected by it, and it seems that if women had the vote South Africa would at once be

dry. Some of the men – all by the way, are impressed by the lecturer’s personality –

think it is a pity the two things are being run together as some of the supporters of

one, are vehemently hostile to the other.

Well, au revior, I thought you would like to hear about Professor Henderson.

Love to Clara and Jenny. J.S.W.W.

90

Presumably the Thomas Cook travel agency

44

Illus. 13. “Modderfontein estate – the House”

91(JW)

Having left Cape Town and the Eastern Cape, they would have joined the main line at

Bloemfontein and travelled north to Johannesburg and Modderfontein, before

heading a little further north again to Pretoria. According to a later letter they also

fitted in a trip to Aberfeldy which is a farming area south of Johannesburg and west

of Harrisburg – possibly to visit a relative. The following is a fragment, pages 14 and

15 of a letter.

………………………….. contented but was enraged beyond measure when the

curator would insist on including me to make me notice a Westralian

Lukaresadamisume big bigbosieneir92

or when Georgie would scream, Oh Jess This is

the Ango?obia belgica [sic] that I showed you from the train yesterday at - no, the

day before at - . So I decided when technicalities were afoot it begame me not to spoil

the pleasures of them as liked them, but to take a day off and read or write or

photograph or do nothing at all.

Onderstepoort, the great Vet. Lab93

near Pretoria seemed likely to be above

my comprehension and so when Georgie went there, I stayed behind. It turned out that

lunch and females had been provided as a sop to the ignorant: also, I nearly, as I have

told you, fell a prey to school inspection.

Still, I had a gorgeous afternoon in which I sat in a park with my writing pad,

camera, King Solomon’s Mines94

and a view of a tea room so I could do what I liked

in what order or waste the whole time in ineffectuality. Georgie had a beautiful time:

91

Possibly the home of a mining Webb relative 92

Jessie’s version of scientific names 93

ICT Lab. Presumably the same one as what is currently known as the Agricultural Research

Council-Onderstepoort Veterinary Institute which was founded in 1908 94

By Rider Haggard (see later references to Khami and Great Zimbabwe ruins and whose possible

connection to Georgie is discussed in my forthcoming paper

45

was apparently fought over by eager experts desirous of handing on knowledge. She

came back exhausted and tells me she can’t remember any of it. So she, with a sense

of duty done, and I with a sense of duty eroded, are, each in our own way, very

satisfied with the day’s entertainment. Still, in the main, Georgie is quite right that

these academic folk are pleased to see us. They are most kind.

My historians have been affable, and not only that, brief in their

instructiveness and one wife, to whom we took a dislike, poured coals of fire on us by

sending to our hotel, a big parcel of lovely examples of native beadwork – for us

both. And I don’t think there can be much officialdom again till we reach Nairobi in

August, by which time, by means of innuendo, psycho-analysis, auto suggestion or

downright lying, I may have persuaded Georgie she doesn’t like it. Honestly, it tires

her very much, and a peaceful tho’ not dull country place like this95

, gives her much

more real pleasure and improves her health.

I think she is better, and if she is not, she is certainly a wonderful traveller,

contemplating nights in the train even merely to see other people’s relations96

with the

most perfect equanimity. Also, she is wonderfully sweet natured and forgiving. I

doubt if she would choose me over again as a travelling companion as sheer

temperament makes me, I fear, often very repressive.

I cannot, and will not see, in a glorious sunset, any reason why I should be

kissed and my agnosticism over many things besides religion eg other people’s

interest in us – must often be horribly chilling. Thus the only real return I can give her

for her generosity is the return I can’t (and don’t give) – still she is so really good that

she may forgive even that, and in the meantime, I’m enjoying it hugely and without

conscience. Jess.

Illus. 14. “Galloping native, snapped from train”

97

95

This letter may have been written from Aberfeldy 96

Presumably was this referring to a Webb at Modderfontein – and perhaps one at Aberfeldy 97 Presumably in the Karoo, South Africa, or over the border in Bechuanaland

46

47

Map 3. Southern and Northern Rhodesia route

48

ADDED MATERIAL

SOUTHERN RHODESIA

There are no letters or diary for this part of the journey so this section has been

created by this editor to fill the gap, commencing with the journey through

Bechuanaland before crossing over into Southern Rhodesia.

There is evidence that they did stop off at Bulwayo and not just continue immediately

on to Victoria Falls: Jessie mentioned on 26th

October “... our hurried trip

there.”(meaning Rhodesia); she compares the streets of Elizabethville with those of

Bulawayo (June letter); there is a photo labelled “(Great) Zimbabwe Homestead”

and on 22nd

June while in the Congo she mentions the Morgenster Mission98

so it

known they spent some time in the area and at least travelled to the Great Zimbabwe

ruins and the nearby Mission.

Based on the train routes and the records of other travellers of the period the journey

through the Rhodesia’s, their journey is likely to have been as follows:

Jessie and Georgie would have departed Pretoria or Johannesburg by train and

travelled west to Mafeking, crossing the border into Bechuanaland. Turning north

again they would have passed through the desert, including through Palapye and

Serule. Daisy Chown described the countryside after Mafeking on her 1925 journey as

being “… somewhat monotonous country of rolling plains covered with long parched

grass, relieved at first by sparsely sprinkled bush and small trees, displaying in

delightful contrast to its generally drab aspect, the tender green of early spring, and

becoming more wooded as the train proceeded north. At the stations, small native

children, clad only in loin cloths, surged around the carriage windows and pestered

us to buy all kinds of roughly-made curios, basket-ware or skins.99

Crossing over into Southern Rhodesia at Plumtree, they would have moved

north-east to the important, central town of Bulawayo, the rail having reached there

in1897. Bulawayo, according to Mary Hall in 1904, “… has the makings of a fine

city, and is very ambitiously laid out in streets and avenues at right angles, after the

American style. …”.100

Jessie’s first letter from the Congo mentions that “The streets

(of Elizabethville) are wide without being bare like those of Bulawayo”. However,

(later, Sir) Stewart Gore-Browne wasn’t so impressed in 1912 – “This is a horrid

town with broad dusty streets and tin houses and a few old colonial brick edifaces, but

curiously enough very decent shops”101

And it did have a rather grand hotel, as can be

seen from the letterhead that Sir Stewart used when he stayed there on a subsequent

trip – a place where Jessie and Georgie may have also stayed.

98

Morgenster Mission, just south of Great Zimbabwe ruins, was established by the Dutch Reformed

Church in 1891 and was, and still is, re-knowned for its extensive programme of education, health and

vocational services 99

Chown, p. 78 100

Hall, pp. 3-4 101

Letter to his Aunt, Dame Ethel Locke King, 15/3/1912, photograph of the original held at Shiwa

Ngandu, Zambia

49

Hall also described a nearby famous local landmark - “The Matopos, a

beautiful range of granite hills, lie a few miles[twenty-eight] from Bulawayo and are

reached by a loop-line. The last resting place of Rhodesia’s founder is situated on an

eminence in the centre of a natural amphitheatre, whence one gets what he himself

termed “The View of the World”.102

Stella Court Treatt added in 1925 that it was a place “…where the granite

rocks, swept by the winds, in their lonely grandeau command the country as far as the

eye can see.”, adding that “It was where he came, …and sat alone and dreamed and

planned schemes for the opening up of Africa.”103

It is quite likely that Jessie and Georgie would have gone to see the famous

grave site as well as the Khami ruins which are only thirteen miles west of the town.

Chown visited them and described them as being of “… similar origin though greatly

inferior to the Great Zimbabwe ruin”. She felt that “These much discussed relics of an

obscure and mysterious past, a key no doubt to the romantic history of a vanished

civilization, comprise the scene of Rider Haggard’s King Solomon’s Mines.”104

Such

a reference would have rung bells with Jessie if she had known about it for she reports

reading Haggard while in South Africa, perhaps because this was well known – and

this connection with Haggard is referred to in more detail in this author’s forthcoming

paper. However, despite being “greatly inferior” the Kharmi ruins have been awarded

UNESCO Heritage status. 105

As described above, there is evidence which indicates that they did visit the

more distant Great Zimbabwe ruins and the near-by Morgenster Mission. To reach

these places they would have travelled north-east by train from Bulawayo on the line

to Salisbury (Harare), turning off beforehand at Gwelo onto the eastern branch-line to

Fort Victoria. The final twenty mile to the ruins would probably be undertaken by

Cape cart, or possibly by safari ie in a hammock, with a string of porters to carry the

luggage and supplies. Either way it would have been challenging travel for the

countryside is quite rugged.

102

Hall, p. 4 103

Court Treat, p.54 104

Chown, p. 88 105

http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/365

50

Illus.15. “(Great) Zimbabwe Homestead” (JW)

On her visit to the ruin Mary Hall was going to stay at Salukwe but “The inn

there was more suited to the mining men which frequented it than to a lady”106

so she

went on in a Cape cart drawn by four mules to Fort Victoria, the nearest settlement to

the ruins. She noted that “The authorities were anxious to improve the means of

passenger communication between it and the railway and I hope they have succeeded

for not many tourists would or could stand the fatigue and inconvenience of such a

trying journey as I experienced, even to see the most wonderful ruins in the world”107

.

However, it is apparent that the ruins were well worth the trouble of getting

there. Court Treatt in November 1924 (who arrived by car and called it ‘Zimbabwe’)

reported “…ruins are on a high plateau and we camped beside the ancient temple,

part of the outside circular wall of which is as perfect today as it was when it was

made, thousands of years ago108

. We were all very impressed with the place: it seems

to breathe of mystery and forgotten things, and we could almost see white-robed

priests solemnly pacing through the narrow, winding passages. It is an oft-visited

place, but in spite of that it affected me as much as if it been a discovery made by us

alone. I almost expected the Queen of Sheba to appear at any moment…”.109

Other

travellers have been similarly impressed.

Knowledge of the history of the ruins was then very limited, but they are now

recognized as a UNESCO heritage site in recognition of their importance in African

history,110

not forgetting that the country is now named after them and that their

picture appears on the bank notes. Even without an ancient history background, Jessie,

and Georgie too, would undoubtedly have found them fascinating.

From the reference made in the Congo June 21st letter it appears that they also

visited the nearby acclaimed Morgenster Mission, probably because of Georgie’s

church connections. There they would have been shown the various community health

106

Hall, p. 12 107

Hall, p.16 108

Actually work on them commenced in the 11th

century 109

Court Treatt, p. 47 110

http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/364

51

and educational services the Mission provided, as well as the woodwork department

which Jessie later compared to that in Elizabethville.

Returning to Bulawayo they would have travelled north-west to Victoria Falls.

Tabor reported that the train “…crossed nearly 300 miles of open savannah. It was

dull country with long straight stretches inundated with scrub and Mopani trees,

crossed by the odd stream. Between Gwaai and Wankie - the latter the site of a

valuable coal mine, the line ran for over seventy miles absolutely dead straight … the

longest strait stretch of railway line anywhere in Africa.”111

The trip took about

twenty-eight hours in 1904 but Tabor noted that its “… progress depended almost

entirely on the amount of game en route” ie the train was stopped at any time for

shooting.112

And animals were abundant in Chief Hwange’s area, although it is

possible that travelling at night, or that they had all been shot out near the line by

1922, might help to explain why Jessie later reported a dearth of animal sightings on

the whole journey.113

Jessie and Georgie probably stayed at the Victoria Falls Hotel which had

opened in 1904 to cater for the railway traffic and which still exists, albeit in much

grander style. Tabor reported that, “In the 1920s and 30s the Hotel was in its

heyday.”114

, a venue which was the height of fashion, with every luxury available.

From there they would have explored the Falls which lay almost at the bottom of the

garden. Daisy Chown reported in 1925 that there was “… a light trolley line

connecting the principal view points thus eliminating unnecessary walking”. 115

This

would have been helpful, given how hot and humid it can be there, and especially

appreciated by Georgie. One of the trolleys can still be seen today in the hotel

courtyard. In 1913 there was no such service and Charlotte Cameron116

had to stumble

around on her own and suffered severely from the high humidity and rough paths,

arriving back at the hotel “… feeling more dead than alive.”

Chown117

also noted that Victoria Falls was, by 1925, already “… the

favourite resort of honeymoon couples, and is the Mecca next to “Home” (England)

of all South Africans.” – indicating the extraordinarily fast development of tourism in

the region – enabled by the existence of the railway. Tabor also pointed out that only a

few years before “No more than a dozen white women, mainly wives of missionaries

and traders, had previously set eyes on the Falls.” 118

Describing the sight, Chown said that “Victoria Falls are indescribably

wonderful, the most splendid of their kind, and utterly unspoilt by man. They have

been called ‘Nature’s Masterpiece’ ”. 119

However, a number of writers refused to

describe their beauty, saying that they are too well known to all readers. Australian

111

Tabor, p. 145 112

Tabor, p. 145 113

To be discussed in my forthcoming commentary and analysis 114

Tabour, p. 159 115

Chown, p. 81 116

Cameron, pp 117-122 117

Chown, p. 81 118

Tabor, p. 148 119

Chown, p. 81

52

journalist Ronald Monson120

who was there in December 1928 while diverting

slightly from his extraordinary but barely known Cape to Cairo walk, said it slightly

differently: “... much has been written of the wonders of Victoria Falls, and never yet

has a writer been able to convey more than a suggestion of the grandeur of the awe-

inspiring spectacle. All attempts to describe the Falls must be in vain, for they defy

description, if ever a spectacle did.” 121

Hopefully Jessie and Georgie were equally enthralled, although, because it

was June when they visited, the amount of spray on the trails around the various look-

outs would have been very high because it is the peak-time of the flood coming down

the Zambezi river from the Congo. This phenomenon makes it hard to see the extent

of the Falls and to fully comprehend their immensity, not to forget that the mists soak

visitors as they wander along the paths through the rainforest, within feet of the great

drops. This may have, to Jessie’s quiet delight, also dampened Georgie’s excitement

of realizing her long held dream - “… at last she gazed on the majesty of the Falls” 122

– given her reported propensity for kissing people when she was thrilled about

something! But the experience of visiting mid-year with the much decreased visibility

can be quite disappointing to those who only have one opportunity to visit, after

invariably being told how spectacular the view was meant to be.

The issue of the swirling mid-year mist can be partially got around today

because of the availability of flights (micro-lights, small planes and choppers) over

the Falls which provide the necessary perspective. The extent of the clouds of mist is

so great that it can be seen, and the noise of the falling water, heard, from miles away

– hence its local name ‘mosi o’ tunya’, the smoke that thunders. The plus for Jessie

and Georgie however, would have been that they would not have experienced the

extreme heat and humidity which is prevalent later in the year, the weather at that

time of the year being cold at night but warm and sunny, with low humidity, during

the day. Jessie commented in Zanzibar, with some amazement on how they had

experienced blue skies for months on end, which is typical of the mid-year dry season

in southern Africa – making it perfect for visitors.

NORTHERN RHODESIA

After the spectacle of the Falls Jessie and Georgie’s train would have crossed

the bridge over the Zambezi river to Livingstone in what became the British

Protectorate of Northern Rhodesia two years later. At that time it was a territory held

by the British South Africa Company (BSAC) under a Charter. The famous railway

bridge which cuts across the dramatic gorge between the two countries was opened to

trains in September 1905. It was designed by Sir Ralph Freeman who also designed

the Sydney Harbour Bridge. It is not known if Jessie was aware that Freeman worked

at various times for Dorman Long, an engineering company of Middesborough,

England. He would undoubtedly have known her cousin Thomas Haynes’ father-in-

law, Thomas Timmins (this editor’s great grandfather), who was associated with the

120

Ronald Monson (1905-1973), famous Australian war correspondent, last worked at the Australian

War Memorial and died in Canberra where he has a street named after him. 121

Monson, p. 100 122

Rapke, p.18

53

company for many years, including as a director, and involved in the planning of the

Sydney bridge.

The Victoria Falls bridge was the highest span of its kind in the world at the

time and covered a 605 foot gap123

. At the command of Cecil Rhodes, it was built so

that the carriages would “… catch the spray from the Falls”,124

despite the fact that it

would have been much less challenging (and cheaper), engineering-wise, to have built

it above the Falls where the crossing was only 150 feet wide. But all travellers must

be grateful for his vision – including modern day bungee jumpers. Ironically, Rhodes,

reportedly, never saw the bridge completed, having died prematurely on March 26th

,

1902 aged forty-nine.

Livingstone, a few miles from the bridge, was the capital at that time (from

1907), Lusaka only receiving that honour in 1935 because of its more central location

and cooler climate. From Livingstone, which had a decent hotel, Jessie and Georgie

may have also had an opportunity to explore the Falls from the northern side – if there

had been time. But there is also a possibility that they had earlier taken a boat from

the Victoria Falls town side to enjoy the surprisingly calm waters to visit Livingstone

and experience being on the Zambezi river just before it so dramatically collapses

over the three hundred foot drop. The northern side provides a different aspect from

that of the southern side, and is equally enthralling.

The train would have then proceeded north, later crossing the broad Kafue

river on yet another impressive bridge which had been completed, with great

difficulty, in1906.125

With one exception (Broken Hill), travel through Northern

Rhodesia would have been singularly unexciting – for unlike its southern cousin, the

north had received little in the way of development, having only about 3,500

European inhabitants in 1921, with more than half of them being administrators or

traders126

. The train would have stopped very briefly at the as yet un-developed and

unprepossessing site of Lusaka, and continued north through largely flat or undulating

countryside to Broken Hill (now Kabwe), where lead deposits had been discovered by

an Australian, T.G. Davey.127

From 1902, four years before rail reached it, Broken

Hill was the site of zinc and lead mining and also the place where the then earliest

human skull (homo Rhodesianis) had been discovered in 1921 – and which would

have been of great interest to Jessie. It is possible that they stopped off to see the site

of the archeological dig, although the train schedule may not have permitted that (they

were twice weekly to the Falls in 1909128

). The final two stops in Northern Rhodesia

were on the now famous Copperbelt, at Bwana Mkubwa, the oldest modern copper

mine in the area, opened in 1902, and Ndola, founded in 1907 when the rail reached

there, as a central trading post and later the site of a major minerals refinery.

A few miles on was the Belgian Congo border and just over it, the small

station town of Sakania. The border was 2,156 miles from the railway’s starting point

at Cape Town and here it left British territory for the first time, having reached the

123

Strage, p. 127 124

Tabor, p. 151 125

Tabor, p. 179 126

Martin, p. 28 127

Tabor, p.188 128

Tabor, p. 154

54

Congo on December 11, 1909 and Elizabethville nine months later. 129

Travelling

straight through from Bulawayo to Elizabethville, a few miles further north miles

from Sakania, would have taken about three days, circa 1918-26. 130

Strage reports about the southern Congo plateau countryside at mid-year, a

description which could also have been applied to the Northern Rhodesia countryside

“…the weather was perennially balmy, and the countryside – lush but sparse trees

and beyond them open grass and a thin horizon of gentle hills - looked more like

Dorset than central Africa.” 131

It would have been a tedious journey for Jessie and

Georgie, as train facilities were basic and the views, apart from the Falls, not

particularly exciting, but it is hoped that they appreciated that the rail they were

travelling on was less than two decades old and the result of enormous efforts by

planners, financiers, engineers and thousands of labourers working under very harsh

conditions to open up southern Africa to the outside world.

Felix Shay, an American doing the reverse journey (Cairo to Cape) in 1923

with his wife, provided a description of Elizabethville (which had been named after

the Belgian Queen) a year after Jessie and Georgie passed through – “… a typical,

tropical town of wide streets, one-storey houses, a few central stores and bars, a

motion picture theatre, a bank or two, buildings for officials and such. The whole

covers a tremendous area …”. He also commented with pleasure about Elizabethville

being “…the first vestige of civilization…” with “…ice and edible food, clean beds

and other symbols of luxury”.

These services were especially appreciated because he and his wife had been

travelling on what he described, in so many words, as a very unpleasant boat on the

Congo river to Bukama, which gives an insight into the conditions Jessie and Georgie

were yet to experience eg “There was one shower bath on this boat for several white

passengers, which might seem to indicate a complication. There was no complication

at all: the bathroom was used as a storage room and was not available for its

ostensible service … we dipped pails of water out of the Lualaba each morning and

tried to maintain our morale”. And “At night mosquitoes distributed their favours

and fevers indiscriminately between us and the blacks” Because there was no ice,

‘antelope’ were shot from the deck each day and hauled aboard for dinner. Singularly

missing was any description of the toilet facilities.

But he did say that “The scenery was much more varied and much more

beautiful than along the Nile….”

Shay also reported that Elizabethville had enjoyed a special prosperity during

the World War 1 period because of its very productive copper mines which

“…employed thousands of Africans and enough white men to jeep them in order….”

But since then, both the Congo and Elizabethville had declined economically, with

bankruptcy “the order of the day”. He also described the golf club with its one small

hut and the course which was embellished with six hundred ant hills, many over

129

Tabor, p. 206 130

Strage, p. 89 131

Strage, p.130

55

twenty feet tall - which obviously made for some rather challenging golfing hazards.

132

American journalist Marcosson adds to the picture of Elizabethville at the time

of his mid-1920 visit133

: “Within ten years it has grown from a small prospecting

outfit in the wilderness, two hundred and fifty miles from a railway, to an industry

employing at the time of my visit more than 1,000 white men and 15,000 blacks …

Equally remarkable is the mushroom growth of Elizabethville, the wonder town of the

Congo. … a spot in the jungle dominated by huge anthills … some of them forty feet

high …”. And, “When I rode in a motor car down Elizabethville’s broad, electric-

lighted avenues and saw smartly dressed women on the side-walk, beheld Belgians

playing tennis … on one side, Englishmen at golf on the other … Everywhere I heard

English spoken. This was due to the large British interests in the Union Miniére and

the presence of so many American engineers.”

He also described the way the boats stopped at night while on the river

because: “The astonishing thing about the Congo river is its inconsistency. Although

six miles wide in many parts it is frequently not more than six feet deep. This makes

navigation dangerous and difficult … soundings must be taken continually.”134

Jessie and Georgie were in for quite an experience (even if they didn’t play golf).

END OF ADDED MATERIAL

132

Shay, in National Geographic, pp. 240-246 133

Marcosson, p.78 134

Marcosson, p. 100

56

57

Map 4: Belgian Congo route

58

BELGIAN CONGO

An almost complete letter and a fragment covering the first part of their time spent in

the Belgian Congo, including their arrival in Elizabethville, the capital of the mineral

rich Katanga province.

… do for a short time, tho not to the same extent in the south, we had bi-

lingual notices.

21st [June]

Our train arrived after dark (about 7pm) at Elizabethville where we were

greeted by two men, the proprietor of the hotel (Mr Dimnice [?] an Italian) and a M.

Herquelle from the Compté Special de Katanga. Katanga is the name of this southern

province of the Congo, and I was under the impression that the Comité Special was a

progress association. By no means, at least not in the sense which Beechworth and

Jamieson have them. One department deals with agriculture, one with forestry, a third

with the geology of the district and so on. Today we were taken to pay our respects to

the head of it, M. Pathé (?) and thence to the British Consul, Mr Denton-Thomson, an

interesting looking young Englishman who had intended to put us up, only his wife

had taken ill with a sort of gastric influenza that is prevalent here.

Bad luck for us, for we are not terribly comfortable as Minnie Fulton135

would

say, at the hotel,136

and besides we would much like a yarn with him. Our amicable

friend, M. Herquelle being present, we could not prosecute our inquiries as to the true

relationships of the Belgians and the British, but we intend to call again.

In the afternoon we were taken over the smelting works of the Star of Congo

and other mines of this highly mineralised district. The noise was great and we stood

in a shower of fine dust, and so that, especially as our guide spoke imperfect English,

I could not follow very intelligently what was happening. But I gathered that in some

ten years’ time this will be as large as the largest similar works in America, and that

the copper is only 97% pure (99.8 being the ideal). Also carried away a picture that I

should like to see etched of dark surroundings, bronze figures of natives, two golden

streams of moulten slack descending into water and another golden stream further on

pouring into moulds that soon turned grey. At the top of the building I looked at a

burning, fiery furnace that burned green, a lovely and terrible sight.

We returned about five, and shortly after were visited by a vivid looking girl,

who introduced herself as Mr Watson’s typist and invited us to call on him. This we

hope to do tomorrow afternoon. She referred to herself as a Britisher which interested

me very much, as, though she does not look it, she is Dutch (Boer). She is educated

Dutch however, and as most of these are, in favour of remaining part of the Empire.

She thinks Smuts is working for a republic. We would like to see more of her as she is

keen and frank.

135

Minnie (Wilhelmina) Fulton was one of Jessie’s many cousins on the Watson side of the family 136

This is rather surprising because the following year Felix Shay raved about the facilities and

services, and Elizabethville was meant to be the height of sophistication in the region at the time.

59

Today at the Consul’s we were rather startled to hear that we must take food and a

‘boy’ to Bukama as, the Consul and M. Herquelle said, there was a place to sleep in,

but nothing else.

22nd

: “Cooks”137

says that it is unnecessary and a ‘boy’ more bother than he is

worth; still, the boat coming up the Congo to Bukama may get on a sandbank and be

some days late and there may be a great shortage of stores, so we will take a few iron

rations and if we do not need them, trade them to the natives.

This morning M. Herquelle dutifully called to take us out. We first wasted a

lot of time at the Standard Bank where we got about 54.75 francs against 56.50 at

Cook’s yesterday. Thence we visited a native school kept by certain ‘White Fathers’,

the native quarters and, as an afterthought, the gaol. The ‘Fathers’ struck me as fine

men with pleasant expressions, and the manual work taught to the natives was

thoroughly taught. All in contrast with the Morgenster Mission at Zimbabwe where

things were made as wanted and a native, after laboriously making a chair, made , say,

part of a sideboard. Here they made each thing eighteen times. But this of course is

subsidised by the Government. There is a blacksmithing Department and the mines

send their boys to learn how to repair machinery etc.

26th

Hence we went to see the white boys’ school – apparently good but the

arrangements for washing primitive – zinc sinks and dirty looking cement boxes for

shower bathing. The ‘Fathers’ we [… …] saw - tall, honest looking men. The one

who showed us over was like this: long faced, blue eyed and black haired type of

Irishman and capable, I should imagine of fanaticism. Some folk say these priests

have too much power in the Congo, but the aide for M. de Bouw says that, as in most

new countries, folk go their own way in religious matters – consequently are not Krist

ridden.

Illus. 16. Native Mine Workers Huts, Katanga c1923 138

After a drive in which we saw the stiff, whitewashed and hygienic editions of

native kraals in which the boys recruited for work on the mines etc were kept under

medical inspection for a month after engagement, and before starting their jobs. We

137

Thomas Cook’s Handbook presumably 138

Shay, in National Geographic, p. 225

60

passed some blacks chained and under escort, turning into the gaol. This inspired our

M. Herquelle to take us over this institution willy-nilly, [but] we had to wait till he

enquired of the Governor if we might. He agreed. He was another interesting type,

extraordinarily tall and with an intelligent and rather sad face, and we were both

pleased when after showing us the perfectly clean blacks’ quarters; their large

allowance of food and their bathrooms – a more attractive affair than those at the

school, although there was one large room with pipes from end to end from which

water fell at intervals - he asked to be excused showing us the whites’. The blacks are

not self-conscious and seem at all events, quite indifferent to being looked at.

That afternoon M. Herquelle gave us (and himself) a holiday which we

employed in visiting Mr Watson, the representative of Robert Williams here. Robert

Williams is a magnate who has had more than anyone else to do with the Tanganyika

Concession and with railroad construction to the Congo.139

Major Gordon and Mrs Harrison both gave us letters of introduction to this Mr

Watson but as the Major had described me [first?] as Australia’s most eminent

entomologist, I refrained from presenting his, considering that Mrs Harrison was just

a chance acquaintance of ours, met at Lady Browne’s in Cape Town. We felt it very

nice of Mr Denton-Thomson and this Mr Watson to be so concerned that owing to

sickness of one’s wife and the absence of the other’s, neither could ask us to stay at

their homes. Indeed, in this one matter our luck was out, three folk were prepared to

put us up when we should arrive. But M. de Bouw was out of town when our letter

arrived addressed to him, Mrs Watson was away and Mrs Denton-Thomson down

with gastric flu.

On Frid. 23rd

(I am writing this on the 26th

on our way to Bukama) M.

Herquelle again arrived with a car, this time to drive us out to the oldest and most

famous – and nearest – of the copper mines, which makes this country - the Star of the

Congo. This was interesting and not nerve wracking as most mine exploration is to

me. I hate the lack of air so much. This however, is a series of big quarries, only a

very few tunnels having as yet been made. All work is consequently done in the open

and instead of blackness we saw much beautiful colour. Not only was there the

occasional bright red or blue of a native’s skirt (for some have not yet adopted the

community shirt and trousers) but in addition to the usual grey quarry colour there

were masses of stone- like turquoise material, brilliant green malachite, black stone

and a fine greenish dust in many places. In one quarry a deep green lake made a

picture like a miniature Swiss lake.

The manager who showed us over was another of those surprisingly tall,

handsome young Belgians, with that delightfully British prejudice, we think so

English. He took us to his little dwelling, revived us with delicious champagne no

less, and rejoiced in our admiration of a lovely white dog, Manor, which with his cat

Pussy and his monkey Napoleon, constituted his bachelor establishment. On leaving I

asked for the dog. His face was a study before he grasped that I jested, and in broken

English, he stammered – I cannot – she would not go – she loves one. It was not at all

sentimental, merely anxious and explanatory.

139

Sir Robert Williams (1860-1938), a Scottish mining engineer, explorer and railway developer, was

one of Rhodes’ team and one of the “Rand Lords” and a stalwart of the Cape to Cairo railway concept

61

If you wish to know that they had at the mine, also cobalt, arsenic and talc

(which does not pay, it being occasionally required here merely for a dance at

Elizabethville), and if to know the proportion of each, which particular compound that

makes the greener colour and which the bluer, well, is it not written in the book of

Georgie? At all events your servant promptly disembarrasses her mind of these

matters, but she kept one or two tiny bits of stone to show you withafter.

I should have mentioned that on the way out we were shown over a compound

in which natives are kept for a month before being sent to work for which they have

enlisted. It is a collection of huts in a compound, built like the natives’, but white

washed, standardized, clean, hygienic and ugly. The overseer was the image of Uncle

Arthur140

: it was hard but for his slightly foreign accent to realise he was of a different

race, until I asked him a mild question about the difficulty141

of making these natives

clean, or whether as some are. They were clean already. He then launched into an

explicit and most un-English disquisition on the sanitary arrangements employed, then

took and showed us. It was quite simple.

On our return to the hotel we found a letter from M. de Bouw (pronounced

like Bowe) to whom Georgie had sent on Mr Lodewyckx’s142

introduction. Having

been away he found this only on his return and wrote post haste to say he and his wife

would call at 5pm to take us out. They did and these people really gave us a delightful

time. Both spoke English, they had a car, and not only were kind but most congenial.

So we went for a run with them on Friday, had lunch on Saturday, were brought back

to the shops for some necessary purchases and again called for us to go for a run and

back for the evening meal. We saw a farm in which they were interested, a queer

mixture to our ideas, of salad vegetables, guavas, bananas and paw-paws, alas not

ripe, and also some really interesting and attractive foreign home life. Mme. de Bouw

was young, with a young baby, who to their dismay, and of course for the only time

on record, roared for nearly an hour when put to bed. They were both entranced with

him, and he was a blonde beaming specimen of what the Congo can produce. He has

to have part of a gram of quinine in his porridge, but until five or six will develop as

well here as in Europe. It was nice too, to see again [at?] a beautifully kept home and

to have really nice simple food; the potato chips were particularly good, and a cheese

soufflé. He was intensely interested in Australian labour conditions of which neither

of us knows much, except that discontent has been extremely exaggerated, and he was

able to gratify much of our curiosity as to the relation of the Comité Special to the

Government here.

I have their address in Brussels in case I go there next year. They will be home

on leave to show the baby – and are wondering how, after the freedom of colonial life

and being mistress in her own house, Madam is going to fit for a time into conditions

she took for granted two years ago. In addition to their other kindnesses (not the least

of which was leaving us free on Saturday afternoon from having to talk from lunch to

dinnertime) they tried to find us a ‘boy’ to go with us this more difficult part of our

trip, from Elizabethville to Bukama and Kabalo to Albertville. Failing that, M. de

140

Probably her maternal uncle Arthur Watson (1862-1915), married to Jessie Maconchie 141

There are a couple of extra words inserted here, which confuse the sentence 142

Here she refers to him as ‘Mr”, not Doctor, but correctly uses ‘x’ as the last letter to his name. He

previously worked in the Congo

62

Bouw came to the hotel to drive us to the station and see us off. The Governor and the

Comité Special have both sent word to officials along the line and given us letters to

present. The Governor’s, we are told, will be invaluable. Still, there seems to be

hardly any accommodation and possibly no food for us, so with M. Herquelle for

guide we laid in provisions for the second day of our train journey to Bukama and for

the boat from Bukama to Kabolo. Finally we left Elizabethville about 10.10am on

Sunday morning with M. de Bouw, the British Consul, his son aged two and M.

Herquelle to see us off.

Elizabethville is a pretty little city, but for the natives, native shops and a few

tin houses, could be a small, modern city on the continent. The streets are wide

without being bare like those of Bulawayo, and alas, of most new British towns, for

the native trees have been cut down only a little, enough for buildings and to keep

away the mosquitos. From the centre, streets radiate, ending shortly in the usual

rectangular plan of the American type but with white colonnaded shops and

restaurants in the open air that is so thoroughly foreign to us.

Illus. 17. Sketch of Elizabethville town layout (JW)

Building operations are going on apace so that the town looks untidier than it

will do eventually and one wanders along the roadway more than on the footpaths.

But for a city of twelve years old and perhaps not two thousand white inhabitants, it

can give us many points. Judging from the catch-less bathrooms and other careless

sanitary arrangements there, one would form an adverse opinion of the Belgian’s

cleanliness, but the glimpses we had of an ordinary gentleman’s home corrected any

hasty generalizations of this kind. While the way they have preserved the trees and

already taken advantage of a sudden falling away of the land on one side of the town

to make a Boulevard, the’re overlooking the forest and two distant mountains, makes

one appreciate their artistic sense.

We had a good time there, with some misgivings. Everyone said Bukama, our

next stopping place north, stood in social nothingness; the guide book143

said terribly

hot and depressing and we know it is malarious, that there was doubt of any

accommodation and that even if we got a room, there might be no food. But our faith

in our luck held, and we thought it a good omen that the dining car went on working

for the first day, but also till breakfast next morning.

Au revoir, J.

143

Probably the Thomas Cook Handbook

63

A fragment

For the rest, we have learnt from a second interview alone with the Consul,

that the alleged ill-will between Belgian and British is largely due to two things, one

the inferior type of each nation, in particular the Englishman who thinks any Belgian

who can’t talk English is a blithering idiot; the other, the fact that this being their own

colony, the Belgians desire to keep it theirs – as M. de B put it. They want visitors to

recognize it is the Belgian’s country and not run it for them. For the rest, it is most

cosmopolitan and in it we have seen Dutch, English, American, Portuguese and we

hear there are many Italians and Greeks. Everyone has been cordial and helpful to us

and M. de Bouw bade us send along some settlers.

Au revoir, Jess.

Letter covering the continuation of the Congo journey, from Elizabethville to Bukama

by train. Bukama is727 kms from the border with Northern Rhodesia, and where the

rail had reached only four years earlier144

. This is where the rail service from the

Cape terminated at that time. The town was very basic and lay in a very marshy area.

From Bukama they continued downstream by stern wheel paddle steamer on the

Lualaba (Upper Congo river) to Kabolo where they caught a train travelling east to

Albertville on the shores of Lake Tanganyika.

Wed. 28 June

Dear Effie and Flos,

I continue my diary letter145

for you though I doubt you will get as good letters

or as useful a diary as if I kept the two separate. Only I fear I should not write much if

I kept a full diary first: it takes too long. If what I write will interest any of the family,

read extracts to them but don’t give these letters to anyone else. At times it will be too

intimate and will Flos please give the letter back to Effie.

I am writing on a Congo steamer and the vibration plus what I fear are the

bites of tsetse flies, account for the super irregularities of the script. There have been

no cases of sleeping sickness for a long time, so, like the bitten ones, hope for the best

and don’t worry.

25th

.You will remember that we left Elisabethville in a state of great

uncertainty as to our fate at Bukama – and indeed as to our provisioning on the train

going further. At first our fears were justified because of an unpleasant scene in the

dining saloon. Four men, instead of eating, were playing cards. Another at our table

knelt on his chair beside me to join in the gamble. He got so excited that he leant on

me. I was promptly losing my temper when the chief of the saloon intervened and he

occupied his own space. But he lost – a fracas seemed imminent and we were glad to

see near us a polished and genial gentleman who spoke English and exchanged words

with us. Suddenly the train stopped and when it started again two of the men got up

144

Tabor, p. 206 145

It is not clear if she is referring to having used a proper ‘letter diary’ (as she did on the Nile leg of

the journey) or if she just means that her letters are acting as a continuing record

64

and went out. Soon after we went to our compartment and did not know till next day

that the two men had got off the moving train: That one, an American, had won

heavily, that my table companion had lost all he had, namely several thousand francs,

and that another man, a Portuguese or Italian, had lost 6000 fr. But, as he too had

decamped with the American, it was suspected that they were in collusion and had

played false.

My friend had to console himself with drink and had to be helped next day

into the train from the station where he had got off, by a native. We were thankful that

he was Belgian and that none of the villains of the piece, drinker or cheats, were

English. Our informant was the genial gentleman referred to. He is Dutch, so enough

has been said to indicate what a cosmopolitan crowd were journeying to Bukama.

After breakfast the second day in the train, our dining car left us and we were

planning a jolly little picnic for lunch when a young and attractive girl, a Belgian,

whose carriage had gone with the car, requested to share our specially reserved

compartment. We were desolated but had the manners to permit it and were rewarded

later. Firstly, some men who were apparently friendly with her, including the genial

man, presented us with many mandarins. Secondly, while our train waited for hours at

a certain station (Kasala Sud, or South), the maiden who had meanwhile [?] informed

us that she was rejoining her fiancé, suddenly caught sight of an incoming train from

Burkama and of the fiancé on it. He came, they went; he evidently preferred to be

with other men, and we were free with clear consciences to have our little picnic as

we had planned it. It was rather thrilling, making tea on a spirit stove while the train

on its narrow gauge146

, rocked down the inclines, but it was admirable lemon tea that

was achieved at last.

After so much veldt and high plateau, the Congo scenery where one has the

work of rivers, even when one cannot see any water, and can get views over valleys to

distant hills, foliage often with young red leaves147

, and occasional glimpses of little

creeks, is more beautiful. As we came lower and lower148

, the vegetation looked more

tropical. Our engine, however, burst some essential and instead of arriving at 4.30 (pm

not am as Cooks had told us thru’ a misprint in the timetable) we did not reach

Bukama till after dark, about 7pm.

Talk of confusion! By some gift of providence to me personally, Georgie

likes, nay, loves, looking after luggage. Joyfully she descended onto a low station full

of gesticulating, jabbering natives, baggages, and a few whites absolutely absorbed in

their own affairs. For long she finds no one to meet us and no station master, and we

had, you will remember, no certainty of where to lay our heads. By dint of peering

into the face of every one and asking every white if he were the Chef de Gare, she

found him, in the possession of a note from a Mr Hoogeveen saying his boy would

guide us to our room. I, meanwhile, having nothing to do – not, I assure you, from

either brutality or inefficiency, tho’ never, never would I contemplate being in an

146

The Belgian Congo gauge was 3ft 3 3/4 inches (1 metre) compared to the ‘Cape’ gauge of 3 foot 6

inches 147

Probably the Mopane tree (Colophospermum mopane) which provide a beautiful display in the latter

half of the dry season in many parts of southern Africa 148

They were coming down off the southern African plateau on which the Rhodesia’s and part of South

Africa lie

65

unknown part with as much luggage as we had with us – had “withdrawn my attention

and thought of Tom Thumb”149

.

I had been amused amidst the chaos to see and hear a ‘boy’ calmly jangling his

little musical instrument. Then I just sat in the carriage until a radiant Georgie

appeared with carriers. While she departed again, I strayed off150

over Africa with

thirteen natives, one leading with a lamp, the others each with luggage, some, it

seems, not ours. Then Georgie joined up and we walked for fifteen minutes to find

ourselves in a tiny bedroom of a tin hotel seen by the light of a hurricane lamp, and

snowed in with boxes and chattering blacks. Then the chief boy who knew some

English replied yes, we could get dinner. We then paid the ‘boys’, but all

accompanied us and off we walked for another fifteen minutes, down one hill and up

another, invisible but perceptible, till we arrived in a little settlement and Mr

Hoogeveen’s store and house.

Mr Hoogeveens is a Belgian of Dutch extraction in a Belgico-Greek company,

who occasionally puts people up. He had no room for us but had secured one at the

railway hotel which is merely furnished rooms (without food) under the control of the

station master. And he was willing, with apologies for defects owing to difficulties of

transit, only a two weekly service from Elisabethville and the absence of his wife, to

give us our meals.

We sat down after waiting long for bread which came on the train with us.

And of all places in the world, it was here that we first had, at an hotel or boarding

house, continental and well cooked viands. We had had them continental after a

fashion. We had them well cooked but never got at the same time. We had soup,

tomatoes with hard boiled eggs (which I omitted) and a most gracious mayonnaise

(which I did not). Then stew (not very good) and vegetables. Then slices of cheese,

with bread and butter – then cake, served as pudding. Then coffee. In every case

except the soup we were given plates and then served ourselves from dishes handed

around by blacks.

Next day our lunch was soup, potato and sardine salad, stewed fowl, sauce,

pastry. Our dinner, soup, fresh fish, salad, beef cooked strangely and cinnamon cake -

wine was on the table and used by all. It was really excellent of its kind, and there was

enough meat for those who might not care for the kickshaws.151

Our Dutch friend (the

genial man), our gambling drunkard, a Portuguese, a Belgian who had learnt to speak

very good English in China, and two other men talking French – probably Belgians,

and our host, were at table with us.

M. Hoogeveens was most expert and impartial with his knife and fork, but our

Dutchman who is a man of the world, handled the conversation admirably, talking

French for a while, then English, then French again so no one need to be silent long.

From him one learned that the Portuguese, whom I had thought rather a handsome and

interesting fellow, had been a slave trader, and though that name could no longer be

149

Tom Thumb - perhaps because he was always going off on adventures, getting into trouble,

including getting swallowed up, and being rescued 150

ie day dreaming 151

Kickshaws, a tidbit, a delicacy, a corruption of ‘quelque chose’

66

given frankly to his proceedings, he still exploited the natives and was by no means a

good sort.

When we woke the first morning in Bukama we found it a little place perched

on two small hills and the flats in front. The Congo embraces it almost on a circle.

Even in this, their winter, a heat haze was over all and M. Hoogeveens would not let

us move outside for some time after the midday meal. Three weeks before our arrival,

two missionary ladies of a Pentecostal mission – whatever that may be - had arrived

there. They would not take quinine because it was against their faith (this was

corroborated to us later by an English speaking missionary who did not share this

mania). Also, ‘because they were in the hand of God’ they went about without hats as

cheerfully as in Ireland and Scotland whence they came. One got malaria – joined the

boat to go to her mission and two days later was dead. The doctor had been

summoned, had ordered quinine injection – but had been told it was against their

religion. Whether the other lives or not, I do not know. But she did not, for all her

friend’s experience, take quinine.

Our two other excitements at Bukama were Mavukolo and the question, will

the boat arrive to time or not? All travellers here who know, travel in this part of the

country with a ‘boy’. He sees to one’s bath, one’s coffee, one’s luggage porters to and

from boats etc. We had none. But a native who had arrived by the same train as we,

who however seemed perfectly at home with M. Hoogeveens’ boy and who had held

his tongue while walking along with our crew from the station, came in the morning

to say in French that he too wished to go to Kigoma and would like to go as our ‘boy’!

30 frs a month would be plenty – he knew how to clean boots, bring hot water etc. In

short, had been a houseboy and could take from us that awful shell-less feeling one

has when having to do for ourselves things no one else does and under conditions one

never has seen before. Besides, he could make152

Only one thing was fishy: his latest book ie pamphlet showing his employer’s

name, his wage and discharge, was missing: burnt he said. Still he had a nice face. We

took him, or rather Georgie did, and oh the comfort of having at one’s beck and call a

human being who, in the intervals of his jobs, was not only willing but highly

gratified to sit nearby and do nothing. Never in the way and never out of the way,

describes the first day of a native’s service to you. He got his certificate from the

doctor without which he could not travel; everything in the garden was lovely, but

alas, towards evening he developed a wife and child, of which, hereto, he had said

nothing. Whether it was merely the native way of doing one thing at a time, that made

him deem it best to fix up about himself and then go on to require a medical certificate

for the lady and her fare, or whether it was genuine deceit, we know not. M.

Hoogeveens advised us to try for another: our Dutch associate, not to take it seriously

but to take the wife too as she was to go only the boat journey as far as Kabalo. So we

made peace with Kolo who was obviously relieved and sought diligently for boots to

clean, and coffee to make for his gratified possessors.

For the other matter, there is an entirely infectious feeling at Bukama that time

does not matter, so every one seemed to be indifferent and we with them, whether the

152

Inserted above the line and then breaks off

67

Louis Cousin153

, came in, or the smaller boat, or whether either came in the morning

or the afternoon or not until the next day. Finally, a small boat arrived after dark, as

the L.C. had not, in the falling river,154

been able to get up so far. The Kongolo would

however, leave next (Wednesday) afternoon.

Next morning pandemonium reigned: The Kongola would leave at 7am. You

can imagine the rush: all was ready, ‘boys’ appeared from the station master’s to carry

luggage, and then a book for us to sign, also from the stationmaster stating that the

boat would leave at 8am and would we kindly sign it. We did. Went to the boat, found

our watches fast, and we could have time to breakfast before we left. So off we

trekked, but Georgie, who had been much more hurried than I, began to feel very

queer. Instead of getting red with the fluster, she got white and rather alarmed me. But

some coffee and bread and butter recovered her, and by 8m we had walked the plank

of a tiny grubby, native infested little motor launch and began our trip down the

Congo.

At this part, the river is called the Lualaba and for a day and a half the scenery

is very pretty and full of interest. Now thru’ tropical jungle, now through grassy flats,

with a few well chosen palm trees reflecting in the water. Now wide, now narrow.

Occasional little tributaries give short vistas inland, occasional pretty villages with

reed windscreens, long gleaming canoes and amphibious babies. Occasionally too,

there is a crocodile which makes one surprised that anyone, let alone a child, should

ever go near the water. Folks throw tins in from the steamer and there is instantly a

rush and tumble and the most energetic swimming contest to secure them.

Mavukolo and his wife had duly appeared at the laundry stage. She was young

and attractive, arrayed in reddish brown print with huge white patterns on it, and a

kerchief to match bound round her head and fastened under her chin with straps of

beads. The infant was tiny: its age according to its papa, is fifty-eight. Presumably he

means days, for he is an up to date young fellow, can count and he says, read. The

lady took one of their two big bundles on her head, and was carrying the baby,

stepped daintily across the plank which was rather giving us pause. Her lord took one

bundle and disappeared but we found him by our baggage on the boat. Then he

produced a small instrument and played contentedly. She occupied herself maternally.

We were given the Captain’s own little sanctuary, a wooden structure tied to

the boat. Later we transferred on to the Louis Cousin , a much bigger paddle steamer

and we were given a cabin each for which we were seriously thankful, for they are

tiny with wire mattressed bed, basin - and nothing more – and supplied by a jolly, but

dismayed Belgian captain who had expected six and received ten passengers, with a

lunch of sorts. We breakfast at 7.30am, lunch at 12.30pm, dine at 7pm. This morning

we had Norwegian sardines, Bombay butter, Dutch cheese, coffee, Swiss milk and

sour bread.

153

Isaac Marcossen travelled on it in 1920 and said, “The Louis Cousin, a 150 ton vessel, was a fair

example of the type of craft proving the principle means of transport on the Congo and Lualaba. Like

all her sisters she resembled the small Ohio river boats I knew as a child in Louisville”. p. 84 154

The water level of the Congo, including its upper reaches which are known as the Lualaba, is

subject to significant seasonal variation, from dry season (mid-year) to the wet season (approx. October

to April).

68

Illus. 18. The Louis Cousin, 1920155

Later we have seen the captain investing in paw paws and our hopes are high.

There is no water in our cabins – one has to prise out Mavukolo from the lower deck

to secure any. The sanitary arrangements are – well, difficult. At times it is very hot

and very noisy. But it is all delightful. There is no dust – there is room to take a turn

or so, and one goes on slowly all the time. Sometimes now we are passing great

stretches of papyrus that seem to reach to the horizon – at others one can see to lofty

mountains, unfortunately too hazy for our cameras.

Mavukola is a constant amusement in the things he desires us to give him.

Georgie tore up a camisole today and gave him the long neck and sleeves part to scrub

boots with; he protested. No – the piccanin156

. We really hope to see it so habited.

Then he found my bathing cap and was refused it, but was given two sheets of paper

and an envelope stained with permanganate of potash, for what purpose I do not

know. He did some washing for me and I was just in time to stop him suspending on

string from this upper deck, a pair of silk pants, the gift of Miss Scott157

, scalloped and

truelover’s knots in cerise. Georgie’s washing which was equally intimate, and more

numerous I insisted on him taking en-bas though how he will interpret the phrase I do

not know. One of my articles I saw fall into the river. I asked what it was. By vigorous

pantomime, unnecessarily explicit, he has informed me that it was a handkerchief. He

is having a fine lazy time of it, and so are we.

Our drunk friend is still with us. He drinks with an Indian who meals with us

all, is violently English and the more so as he gets drunker and angrier. The Belgian,

who, to do him justice, looks weak rather than vicious, got told by him yesterday that

he ought to learn English and then they could discuss matters probably [properly?].

The lack of a common language does not appear to hinder their potations. We take

155

Homer Leroy Shantz, Jan. 1920, Uni. Arizona Herbarium 156

Baby or small child 157

This is likely to have been ‘Scotty’ (Miss Violet Scott) who was a long time housekeeper to the

family of her cousin Thomas Haynes (this editor’s grandfather)

69

care to keep the urbane Dutch gentleman between us and them, and reward him with a

tumblerful of lemon tea at 4pm. Amongst the others are two missionaries in the

speech of whom methought I detected a familiar twang. Tis true. They are

Australians; have been here only a few months and in Tasmania last year had heard of

two ladies going to the Cape to Cairo from the Melbourne University. Were we the

ones? We were and on the strength of it, Georgie is to get a large ant that lays eggs,

some tsetse flies and a dead scorpion.

Here endeth, June 28th

, the first instalment of the river trip. Yours ever, Jess.

The following is an extract from a later letter (nd) about Tanganyika which includes

mention of their last day in the Congo.

Monday 10 July we spent most peacefully at Albertville158

waiting for the

Vengeur to sail at 7pm. We merely watched the constant traffic of natives past the

hotel, at least I did. Georgie was at first engaged in feverishly trying to absorb the

Annual for 1921 of the African World which the Administrator had lent us the day

before and which had to be returned when our luggage went to the boat as Kolo would

have to stay to watch it. Then, at the very end of the day, it was sprung on us that (1)

we must be on board by 6pm, (2) food was not procurable on board. So an early tea

must be obtained at the hotel and (3) a health certificate must be got from the Doctor

who lived right away from the present village on the highest point of the town to be.

So all the good effects of the loaf were dissipated in a wild rush round.

Georgie was very tired; still six o’clock found us on the pier talking to a Norwegian

Captain of another boat that plies sailing into Northern Rhodesia, and the forlorn

Englishman who tries to make a living in enamel goods at Albertville. P.S. G says no,

it is another who sells enamel […] and has a busy general store. (They are to some

extent ousting native basket-ware for certain purposes. I saw one woman wearing a

basin as a hat and later she turned it up the other way and it balanced just as well.)

We were given – it is the perquisite of the few white women travellers and of

bishops - the captain’s cabin. The other passengers slept on deck on the floor, or the

better off ones in deck chairs. These and hurricane lamps will be abidingly associated

in my mind with the Congo. The first are the luxury of the coloured people – the other

the […] of the whites and the coloured alike. But on the Vengeur Georgie and a Hindu

or an Arab were the only possessors of the deck chair. He wrapped himself up, slept;

two women and a young man who accompanied him chattered freely. The boat began

to rock wildly tho the lake looked perfectly calm. I fled and lay resolutely in the one

position all night on the Captain’s couch. Georgie shared the cabin but only had her

long deck chair. So it was two rather dishevelled mortals, and one of them had not

even glanced at the moonlight on the lake, who were met at the ramshackle pier (that

was all the Germans had left of their formerly good landing stage at Kigoma) by the

Senior Commissioner Mr Bagenal.

158

Albertville, now known as Kalemie, on the western side of Lake Tanganyika

70

71

Map 5. Tanganyika and Zanzibar route

72

TANGANYIKA AND ZANZIBAR

These letters cover their travels after arriving from the Congo at Kigoma on the

eastern side of Lake Tanganyika and thereafter travelling east to the coast. They only

spent a very short time at Kigoma and Ujiji before going on the train to Tabora,

staying there for some days. They then continued on to Dar-es-Salaam before

embarking on a boat for Zanzibar where they stayed briefly. They then boarded a

boat, stopping off at Tanga, a major port on the coast, before arriving in Mombasa to

commence the Kenyan leg of their journey.

In this letter which is missing its beginning and is therefore undated, Jessie starts off

by referring to Tabora but then reverts back to Kigoma and their arrival from the

Congo, and then continues with stories of subsequent places in Tanganyika. The place

names have been inserted.

[Kigoma, Ujiji and Tabora]

Was it Coleridge who wrote:

[In a vision I once saw]

It was an Abyssinian maid

And on her dulcimer she played

Singing of Mount Abora? 159

It really doesn’t matter if it wasn’t or if it wasn’t what he said – for there is no

relevance about the quotation except possibly that this place is called Tabora. In other

words we are in the middle of Tanganyika territory, to the west, lake has succeeded a

view of a market place, and to the continuous wash of its waters, the continuous

murmur of those who do not wash enough. Two huge coconut palms, the first I have

seen on this trip, stand between the hotel and each end of the market. Arabs and

Hindus, whom we have scarcely seen from Capetown to Bukama, are the chief traders

for a community of about 60,000 natives and seventy-five Europeans.

In short, we are back into historical Africa, the Africa that was known to

Mahomadans before it was known to Europeans, the home of ivory and the slave

trade. Tabora itself is only 100 years old or so, but this is ancient indeed when

Bulawayo of thirty, Elisabethville of twelve, Bukama, Kabalo and Albertville of a few

years only, have been our recent stopping places.

We have not seen much of it yet, as after last night spent in a jolting train, a

crowded day yesterday at Kigoma, and the night before rolling on the lake, we felt

thoroughly weary; the remedy, a sleep in the daytime, left me with the far worse

sensation of all- over staleness and inertia which made a walk around the market

enough for the time being. Tea, though bad, followed by a cigarette (no, I have not

become a smoker) made life tolerable enough for me to read some of Burroughs on

walking tours and their invigoration, and then to try and comfort Kolo, who having no

wife, no camarade, only ‘boys’ speaking English Swahili instead of the Swahili of the

159

From Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

73

Belgian Congo, is miserable and longing for the train that takes him towards home on

Monday next. We too depart then in the other direction for Dar-es-Salaam.

[Kigoma]160

We had not known whether we should go straight on by the afternoon train to

Dar-es-Salaam, or stay a week at Kigoma to catch the next, or stay till a goods train

went down as far as Tabora, break our journey there, and then re-join the next mail

train to go to the port. We did none of these things. We had wirelessed to the Kigoma

Hotel for rooms but we did not go there. Thanks to Mrs [sic] Felix Mayer161

who

forcibly introduced his sister in law162

to us and made her get her husband give us a

letter of introduction to his brother. This very nice specimen of British Administrator

took us in his little car up to the palatial Kaiser hof, and introduced us to his wife. She

introduced us into a suite of rooms bald and bare, even mirror-less, but so un-

necessarily luxuriously clean, and left us with a bathroom on the floor of which one

could stand with bare feet.

We were then given food one did not contemplate sadly before eating and –

here comes the punch – asked when we were going on. If at once, the Commissioner

would forthwith, drive us out to Ujiji, the show spot because of Stanley’s finding of

Livingstone there in the seventies. Well, you can stay at an hotel or leave it, but you

can’t quarter yourself on British residents for a week. There turned out to be no goods

train, but a mixed train would leave on the following Sunday. Mrs Bagenal was going

on Safari with her husband in a fortnight and then they were leaving for England, she

for the Cape. Georgie, who was radiantly happy, turned to me and said I had better

decide and I really felt a brute to say resolutely, “we had better get on tonight to

Tabora”. I’d have loved to stay, but I felt it in my bones that it was too much to ask of

the relatives of a man we had never met and who are so placed that they must receive

their fellow countrymen at any time. They were kindness itself, but it was the right

thing to do, and we both knew it.

[Ujiji]

So we were driven out to Ujiji. It has been so long to me now, a name with a

location I often confused with that of places on the Victoria Nyanza that I hesitated

just now as I wrote it, thinking no - that’s to come; what was the name of that place.

Georgie, for the first time, forgot her cameras and I had only six films left. However,

we saw the historic meeting place under a now dilapidated mango tree which was then

on the shores of the lake, but now, owing to its subsidence since it overflowed into the

Lekiya river, is separated from it by some forty feet of land. It was too, the first native

town we had seen. Some crumbling white walls testified to the Arab slavers’

presence, just as the clean white washed Boma (fort) and police station testified to the

more recent German occupation. Since Kigoma was built however, Ujiji has declined

in importance for trade. It looked most peaceful. Its head man, a native wearing a fez,

was a jolly soul who followed respectfully, bearing all our money in our bags, and yet

160

Kigoma, on Lake Tanganyika, in the NW, is one of the busiest ports on the Lake enabling easy links

with Northern Rhodesia in the south, Congo in the west, and Burindi in the north of the Lake. The rail

from Dar es Salaam on the east coast goes through Tabora to Kigoma and was completed in 1915. 161

Felix Mayers – possibly a relative of the Kenyan Mayers, see FN 176 162

Mrs Stiebels of Tabora

74

its history has been far from peaceful, and even now witchcraft is the curse of its

inhabitants, and lions and leopards walk its streets by night.

We met there too, the administrative officer, one of the three under Mr

Bagenal and as he was on his way to another part of his District we had the good luck

to be accompanied by him (after we had all three lunched at the Bagenals), part of our

journey in the train to Tabora. Under his expert advice we looked out at the proper

intervals to catch a sudden and last glimpse of Tanganyika on our right163

– the old

caravan road, the old slave track in the hills. We got out too, late at night on to a

station called Uvinza164

where we could faintly see the line of a hill whence issues the

only salt spring known and worked in this part of Africa. Salt works are busy

precipitating it, but the interesting thing is that there is a theory that it was in search of

salt, so rare in Africa, that the whole Bantu race began its migrations. There is near-

by, another spring to be worked soon. It has not yet been looked at by Europeans and

the Sultan of the District cannot so much as see it. It is near the burial ground of his

ancestors, he could not touch salt from it, and a pile of stones on the path past it warns

him when to make a detour though the white man who may be with him, can of

course, keep straight on.

Mr Langlands told us many anecdotes of natives that reminded me of Judge

Murray’s 165

stories from Papua. One day he was writing in his office when two

natives entered, laid a club on his table, and waited. “Well, what is it?” he said. We

have killed our aunt”, they replied, “and come in as we were passing, to tell you”.

“That is a pity, we shall have to send you to prison for that”. “Yes, Bwana, (sir), “It

turned out after questioning that Auntie was a reputed witch and hated by the villagers

and her nephews were, according to their lights, accepting a family responsibility and

doing a virtuous deed in putting her out of the way. Mr Langlands sent the case to

higher powers but agreed with their decision to punish with imprisonment only.

Talking of punishments, the kindred question of atrocities we have elicited

that while in the Belgian Congo firms like the Railway company can whip for

offences, here only government can do so. A really disobedient native can be sent for

stripes; if given by his master and if he complains, the Master is punished, by fine I

fancy but am not sure. Mr Langlands can order six stripes on his own authority, or

twelve after he has asked permission from Mr Bagenal. Here prisoners are hardly ever

chained. Unluckily but for there[?] is hatred – quite unsentimental – of being

separated from their women, natives, by all accounts, rather like prison with its ample

food and companionship and Mr Langlands groans that things they really dislike

cannot be made effective against them. Ridicule for instance. “How I should love” he

reiterates, “to be able to put some of my fat old mischief-making women in the stocks

– or duck them on the ducking stool. The whole village would rejoice with me, but it

163

ie the Lake, because the rail goes south for a short distance before turning east 164

Salt is still being mined there 165

Australian Sir Hubert Murray (1861-1940), Administrator of Papua, 1908-1940. The connection

may have been his brother Gilbert, who was an ancient historian and a devoted ‘Hellenist”, also

foundation chair of the League of Nations (1923-38). Gilbert’s wife, Lady Mary, was the daughter of

the ninth Earl of Carlisle and a keen suffragette and temperance leader and who participated in the

League of Nations meetings – which makes for a strong connection to Jessie. However Gilbert lived in

England and Hubert in Sydney (when not in Papua) but as Melbourne was the capital city at the time to

where Murray reported Jessie may have had dinners with him when he came down south, and there

heard the Papuan stories

75

isn’t in the Indian penal code and can’t be done.” It sounds rather [non?] sense doesn’t

it? – as if it might suit the Africans’ stage of evolution without the barbarities that do

not now suit the white man’s?

Women among the natives here, according to both Mr Bagenal and his

subordinate, are a pretty powerful folk, but I, at least, did not learn much about them.

Marriages have often some affection but are largely a matter of bargain and it is the

women who clear out most. It is accepted that women carry loads – but they are not

very heavy; and get the wood, but it is poor stuff to be collected, not chopped, and

grind the meal. The children too belong to the father and a woman never says “They

are my children”, but merely “I bore them”. On the other hand, her lord hears of it if

he does not provide her with finery and if he strikes her, she is apt to depart for she

can get any amount of other husbands. If she does thus depart, leaving children, her

family will have to pay back portion only of her purchase money or cattle, as the case

may be. If there are no children, no matter how long she has been with the man, it has

all to be refunded. Mr van der Staaten, our Belgian Administrator on the other side of

the lake, talking of some similar arrangements among his clientele, mentioned that he

was trying to inculcate the idea that if a man had had her for a certain number of years

there should be a pro rata reduction of his refund.

This young man is apparently keen on proportion for he is busy too, teaching

his people the value of the fractions of a franc. It has been most instructive to see a

little of this change from barter to currency among the natives and the chances for

sharp dealing it gives the more intelligent, such as a Hindu. It throws light on the

economic chaos of early Greece for one thing.

To return to our government instructors. It was most amusing by the way, at

the van der Staatans’,166

when Madame horrified her husband (not by the facts but by

stating them to Englishwomen I think) with the remark that one of his chiefs used to

lend a visitor a woman whenever he stayed the night. “Do not say it”, he cries. “But it

is true”, said she artlessly, and I felt most gracious coming to the rescue with the

remark that this pleasing hospitality was practiced in the South Seas also. It seems that

in the District referred to by Mrs van der Staatan, the women were too valuable an

asset to be allowed out of the land. If a man married one and left the District, he had

to leave his wife as well. This is the only place, and is about forty miles north of

Kongola - of which I have heard any such festive scandal.

For the rest, native men and woman meet and talk freely, shake or really clasp

or touch hands in a rather tender but brief fashion, just as the men do among

themselves. Our friends at Kigoma laughed heartily at my idea that a native woman

had a bad time.

When the Belgians had possession here, the natives complain that it was “the

rule of women”, not that it was a soft rule, far from it, but because whenever a woman

brought an action (it is alleged), she won. Now tho, this Arcadian condition seems to

have passed, she declines to be down trodden and even rules the roost. But I suspect

old age is a serious proposition for them. It was for ‘Auntie’.

166

This is referring to their time in Albertville

76

Back in British territory again, we again hear of the anti-British feeling of the

Belgians, and of British dislike to the average individual Belgian. Of course the

Belgians operating from the west across Lake Tanganyika, both with white and native

soldiers, fought well in the war and either took or assisted in the taking of Tabora.

Under a mandate of the league of nations however, Britain gets the territory,

except a small richest part, Ruanda and Burindi. For eighteen months or so the

Belgians were in possession here and in Kigoma. Consequently there was bitterness

and tears – men wept openly – when the transfer had to be made. It is said that no

Belgian would lower the flag; a native corporal had to be made to do it. However this

may be, I read in a Belgian article in the African World this terse summary of the

chief events of 1921:

From the international point of view, the handing over to England of most of the

territories we had conquered in late German East Africa;

- From the inland point of view, the appointment of Maurice van Lippens as Governor

General of the Colony;

- From the industrial/mining point of view, the fact that radium can and will be

produced on an industrial basis from certain ores in Katanga;

- From the transport point of view, the unquestionable success of the Goldschmidt

amphibian boat that travels equally well on rivers and on land.

If the last two of these, together with the fact that in parts there is a wireless,

and in parts, an aeroplane service, indicate the ambition and the efforts of the Belgians

to develop their colony by the most up to date mechanical means possible, the first

indicates the friction there has been between the two nations, and the second perhaps,

the way in which it is being lessened. Van Lippens is, we hear, a very great admirer of

English methods. He is choosing a fine type of administration and is dismissing men

whom he deems unsuitable agents for his ideas of colonial government. Perhaps this

is why we hear from moderate people over here, that it is the people in lower positions

who are bitter about the mandate, and that the chiefs recognize not only that the

British cooperation made possible the Belgian defeats, but also that Belgium with her

six millions of people, has already her hands full in administering what she already

has. The mineral wealth I know from many sources is colossal. Mr Carle, whom

some of you will remember in Australia during the conscription campaign, had an

article on it in the Bulawayo Chronicle of Nov 26. 1921. In the case, neither of the

Congo, nor of Tanganyika Territory, is it a question of land for small farmers. Neither

is it a white man’s country in the sense that the white can oust the native and bring up

his children here. Also, had the territory been divided merely according to the position

of the victorious armies, the boundaries would have cut in the most hopeless fashion

through tribal territories.

There are counter claims too, of which I should, I suppose, blush to say, I

don’t yet know the truth – so that there were more British at the taking of Tabora than

Belgians. However, it may be the head people we have heard, both British and

Belgian, show no animosity to each other, tho’ the British regretfully acknowledge

77

that the Belgians when they had to evacuate, left every town and village in a most

filthy and careless condition. The young bloods are furious about it.

[Tabora]167

Here in Tabora the roads, good when the Germans had it, are still dilapidated.

The hotel, an old Arab house, is even more so. Its diseased plaster and crammed dust

gives me the creeps some times as we ascended by wooden steps that might lead to a

barn. Our room is bare, windowless, with doors and shutters on to balcony and

passage that makes one think of imprisoned women, intrigue and cruelty. Another is

full of cheap prints, torn carpets and rusty hangings that make one think of fleas. But

the man who keeps it, a Greek again, as at Kabalo and Albertville, is a dear chap as

the Bagenals told us, as we have found. He beamed to hear the Bagenals had spoken

of him, does all he can for us, gives us our meals in state, alone. Jess.

Tabora continued, fragment only, no date, written as part of a letter from Zanzibar

and including mention of Kigoma and Tabora (moved from Zanzibar letter to ensure

continuity)

… n the sights and explained the institutions of the places that had either. In

the Territory we were more social but almost as much instructed too. A letter secured

us by Mrs Mayers introduced us to Mr Bagenal at Kigoma – one of the eight

commissioners of that colony. Thru’ him we were handed on at Tabora to Mrs

Stiebels, wife of another but absent commissioner and were introduced without delay

into the life of the little British community of government officials there. I felt as if I

had slipped into an Anglo Indian novel. Also, as if, had I stayed there, I would have

acquired some imagination. One felt though, one could not hope to understand it, the

weight of native Arab and Hindu life at the back of this tiny group of golfing,

motoring, tennis playing, dining and administering English folk. Perhaps it was only

our hotel that gave me the jim jams.

[Dar-es-Salaam]

Torn fragment only. After Tabora they continued travelling east by train until they

arrived in Dar-e- Salaam on the coast. From there they caught a boat across to

Zanzibar island. This piece is written there and includes a little about Dar-es-Salaam

where they spent about twenty-seven hours. While in the Sudan she also mentions

visiting Robert Stobo at Tanga, the last port before Kenya (presumably a relative as

Stobo was a family name) but there is nothing here on Tanga. This seems to be part of

a letter to Thomas, date approx. 17 July.

... no building up from small, make-shift beginnings as with us – or else the

make-shift period must have been extraordinarily short. I couldn’t at first keep

thinking how terrible for the Germans to lose all this, but it is really more striking

after all, how much in mere money, to say nothing of life, we have spent to get it.

167

Tabora (Kezeh in Arab days), was the centre of the slave trade and a major trading centre between

the Congo River and the coast before Colonial rule. It is a junction on the Central railway, and at an

altitude of 1200 metres on the plateau. The town was also eventually linked north by rail with Mwansa

on Lake Victoria.

78

Dar-es-Salaam, like the rest of the world, has been having a bad time since the

war. So we hear is Kenya Colony. To be concrete, firms that have their headquarters

elsewhere are closing their branches, in their place the Mombasa Warehousing Co.,

for example, and she […] consult directions [... Mack and Co., and a Mr Bracebrook’s

firm, both established here in Zanzibar.

We had the vaguest idea of what Dar-es-Salaam would be like. I expected to

get a shampoo and – shut your eyes here Thomas, a pair of corsets. But we found no

European shops at all. Hindus, Goanese with Portuguese names such as de Silva, are

the nearest contribution but grocers and stationers seem to be their main contribution

to the needs of the whites. There were [...] but […] in plenty at Tabora [… …] has

[… …] only - but there was a comfortable hotel kept by a despondent Britisher (S.

African) who thinks this territory will be handed back to the Germans. However,

arriving one morning at eight, we left the next between eleven and noon for there was

a big […] Castle boat coming across168

. Georgie paid ten […], five each for five hours

on her!!

[Zanzibar]

Here in Zanzibar we have no member of the Comité Special to instruct us, tho

we have caught a glimpse of the ‘Anglo-Indian’ life here by being taken by a

rickshaw to look on at a polo match, we have no Mrs Stiebels to commandeer for us

the attention of her friends. We are, in short, mere tourists again and feel we are

missing much knowledge, though gaining much freedom. We drive, we watch, we

read bits of the guide book and bits of Major Pearce’s “Zanzibar, the island

metropolis”169

and – we spend money. Georgie – but that is her story. At all events, I

walk in reflected glory, greeted by Hindu shop keepers with the respect due to one

who may expedite or - divert the favours of the great. Incidentally, I have kept my

own head and remembered on the whole that I have far to go, little to go with and not

much to put anything I buy in. Even so my purse has suffered assault and has had to

pay off the besiegers. Sigh sentimentally, say “Ah, Louis!” and you will have both

expressed my feelings and determined the cause of my undoing. It is a Chinese firm

which has the sign A. H. Louis and Georgie is probably right in her suggestion that

this is Englished from an original Ah Louey. He, the representative I encountered, is

several inches shorter than I am, bow windowed, and has tiny white hands with the

nail of the thumb and the little finger about half an inch long. The goods are

reasonable – and not reducible by any effort of the client as luckily I guessed and did

not attempt to do it. I purchased a lovely little bit of worked ivory after much

cogitation. It was handed me wrapped up in most inferior brown paper.

Then I saw some tiny Chinese figures, bought those and being on a higher

shelf demanded to see two very dusty figures. …said Ah Louis ‘too dear – look, but

not buy’! I looked, received a dissertation on Chinese pottery, and fell. For when

dusted the ornaments were of the most gorgeous blue, they were fifty or sixty years

old, the minerals in the clay was beginning to appear on the surface. They represented

a holy man first eagerly recording a bead, a stage in his devotions, and second,

sleeping with a completed rosary on his knee. The purchase took ten minutes and I

168

ie from Zanzibar to Dar es Salaam 169

Francis Barrow Pearce, 1920

79

was an hour and a half in the shop that day and nearly along the next, for no ancient

mariner had ever a greater determination to impart accurate information than that

small Chinaman. Unluckily, as he described to me the religious devotions depicted in

my pottery, I said helpfully, ‘Yes they are monks’! He nearly wept. No, they are not

monks, there are three religious …

Fragment only

There is a special Hindu quarter and beyond is a native quarter and they all

seem to me very mixed. The absence of mosques struck me as strange, as it would

have been – but Mohammadism here is not high church and the mosques are not

specially distinguished to the eye, at least of a foreigner. We are in the Arab part, the

hotel, as at Tabora, being an old Arab house and in a street behind us is the house of

Tipper Tib, the slave trader of Livingstone’s days. A Mr Glazebrook and his partner

(of the East African Agency) have a twenty years lease of it for their offices and

dwelling. Nearly all the better houses have the most admirably carved doors – even

some hovels have them. When Europeans occupy the houses these doors are kept

oiled and really do repay the owners for their servants’ trouble. We saw a beautiful

specimen in Tabora - the door of Stanley’s and Livingstone’s house there, bought by

the Stiebels and now under offer to the New York Herald for £1000.

This city is not large. Quite soon the main street ends in a leafy avenue. Sports

grounds, gardens, the houses of rich Indians … coconut and small orange plantations

succeed in some directions and in others, the clove. The fragrance is delicious and

over all, town and country alike of course, a blue sky that I for one enjoy, all the more

because it is often cloudy. We have been under cloudless or virtually cloudless skies

so long that a billowy cumulus is welcome as the shades of a rock in a thirsty land.

You will know from my previous letters or else from Georgie’s general letter

to the Catalysts, that in the Belgian Congo we were in some ways treated as if we

were the guests of the government and were systematically, not to say resolute

…………

80

81

Map 6. Kenya route

82

KENYA

These letters are mostly about Kenya and were written soon after arrival in

Uganda. There is nothing about the trip from Mombasa on the coast inland to Nairobi

(although that is briefly referred to later while on the Nile) or what they did there and

only scattered references to where they travelled in-country. Their travels appear to

have included, after going through Mombasa, Nairobi, Meru to the north-east of

Nairobi and Nakuru to the north-west, which was also on the route to Kisumu from

where they caught the boat across Lake Victoria. Jessie mentioned while in South

Africa “And I don’t think there can be much officialdom again till we reach Nairobi

in August”, indicating that they were planning to meet professional colleagues in

Nairobi.

Caz[?], Flo, Jenny, / if back, Jean Wilkinson, Ethel Bage (all scored through) and

Effie

Have written separately to Connie

[On hotel letterhead paper]

Imperial Hotel

PO Box 88 Kampala

Uganda

[Sunday] 27 Aug. 1922

Dear All of you, We have reached another landmark in our journey of many

climaxes and new departures, and though we shall be hereabouts for over a month,

Kampala is virtually the jumping off ground for the more uncomfortable part of our

journey, the connection between Uganda and the Egyptian Sudan.

We arrived here on Friday; today is Sunday; we have just renewed out

acquaintance with the Nelsons whom we met on the boat and [of sic] whom the

youthful housefather is an ADC (Assistant District Commissioner) and, incidentally,

for some month before the war, a student of Georgie’s. Like Mr Whitworth at Nairobi,

he is willing to put all in her way that he can – in the prayer book sense, to prevent us

in all our doings; and as an audience with the King of the Baganda, or more likely,

with his minister, the sight of a gathering of chiefs and a glimpse of crowds of natives

assembled to say farewell to Sir Robert Coryndon170

when he departs to Kenya, are

included in our programme for the next few days, I had better hurry up to bring my

letters up to date before I find the last lot of events obliterated in memory by the new.

170 Sir Robert Coryndon (1870 - 1925) was a British colonial administrator and a former secretary of

Cecil Rhodes. He became Governor of the colonies of Uganda (1918–1922) and Kenya (1922-1925).

He was one of the most powerful of colonial administrators of his day.

83

Illus. 19. Advertisement for Imperial Hotel, Kampala171

Georgie also is toiling at a home letter and it is amusing to notice the different

items on which she appeals to me for corroboration of some statement she is making.

Just now, it was whether the Captain of the Clement Hill had said the Victoria Nyanza

was rising or falling: last time it was the name of a swamp near which – tho’ we

didn’t see it – we had had lunch on our tour round Kenya. I had written at great length

on that topic without ever thinking of the swamp and greatly fear I would have

neglected to record either for you or for myself the captain’s words of wisdom about

the lake. Now however, if I can find out the truth, you shall share it, do not fear.

By the way, our letters are a subject of more or less gentle friction between

Georgie and myself. She cannot think why I occasionally write to the lot of you the

same diary letter that goes ultimately to my family to be kept for me in case I want to

know what I did on 27th

Aug. 1922. It is in vain that I explain that I know you all

pretty well, or that but few soul-revelations or even pieces of information, are

contained in my epistles. She comes every time to the conclusion that “it is force of

circumstances”.

On the other hand, while I laugh at her sometimes for her desire for facts, I

rather envy her when later on she will consult her home letters. They are much more

real diaries than mine, and facts recorded when no special interest attaches to them,

are often the keystone of one’s memorial arch, so to speak. So who knows what I may

not lose some day of emolument or respect by not knowing the name of the swamp on

our little “safari’. I have almost the desire to write or wire to Mr Whitworth, “kindly

advise immediately name of swamp near which urgently needed food was

administered to Sweet and Webb Aug, 7 1922.”

171

From Tabor, p. 268, nd or source

84

Instead I know I shall send him an answer to a question of his in a letter to

Georgie “Hasn’t Miss Webb got a jigger 172

yet?” The reply is:

‘No Mr Whitworth No

Jiggerless I go

But Dr Sweet has had two on her feet

And one in her second toe!”

All of this is literally true, no licence anywhere, but I’ll never get a job because of

impeccable truthfulness. However, diary letter, or [denir?]… letter diary, neither of

‘em gets an answer from anybody. What’s the odds?173

Illus. 20. Mr Whitworth’s hut at Meru. (JW)

[After Nairobi]

We left Nairobi on the fifteenth of this month174

and since then, up to the 25th

,

we have been in private houses. First, with Colonel and Mrs Weir whom we met

through Stewart Webb175

, next with a friend of theirs, and then back to the Weirs.

Next thro’ a letter from Georgie’s lawyer, we stayed with the Mayers176

at Bungu177

(Queensland folk) who have begun a sugar plantation there, not far from Victoria

Nyanza and have also built the first sugar mill in Kenya Colony. Thence by rail to

Kisumu and boat to Entebbe we came from Kenya to Uganda.

172

Jigger, the Chigoe flea, Tunga penetrans which lives in sand/soil and latches onto bare feet, usually

the toes, burrows in, lays its eggs and causes intense irritations and infection 173

There were obviously problems with mail getting through from Australia at this point 174

ie August 175

Possibly her paternal cousin Stewart Donald Webb (1899-1986) 176

George Russel Mayers (1864-1930) was born in England, came to Australia aged 20 and became a

leading sugar cane farmer at Babinda, just south of Cairns, He was Chair of the Cairns Shire Council

from 1912-1918. He and his wife Louisa Elizabeth Penelope and family moved to Miwani near Kisimu

in Kenya and started “the Victoria Nyanza Sugar Company, a most successful concern”. Other

members of the Mayers family, including adult children Cyril and Eric and their families joined him in

Kenya. Marston Mayers wrote “Life and Adventures of George Russell Mayers”, c 1932, reviewed in

the Townsville Daily Bulletin, 31 Aug 1932. Georgie’s lawyer may have been involved in the company

Mayers established, and which had its board meetings in Melbourne. 177

Possibly the name of the property, spelling unclear, no such place on old maps

85

At Entebbe a friend of Professor Woodruff’s178

is […] Chief Veterinary

Officer [...] and though he was unluckily away. Georgie waited for ours going the

opposite way - his wife treated us most royally, kept us four nights instead of the one

we had arranged for and professed to enjoy having us in her husband’s absence. This

however, was in Uganda; I must try to copy Georgie and keep to my order. But you

see, in one way or another in Kenya, we caught a glimpse at least, of various sorts and

conditions of men and homes, and short though our time was there, I find on looking

back, that we came in contact with several of the types and a few of the interests that

are recognized as typical of the country.

I’ve already spoken of the official element that is getting retrenched and often

rather dispirited. In addition to economizing which may be necessary, there seems to

be a curious habit of moving officials rapidly from one district to another. The DCs

and ADCs (Assistant District Commissioners) we have met seem to be taking a keen,

even paternal interest in their natives and to desire to do their level best for them. Yet

after six months or so, just when the tribe or tribes are beginning to know the white

man who for them is the government, off he is sent. I think I mentioned before that

one said to us: learn the language of your natives, or make a garden, or spend a bit of

your own money on your house and you’re sure to be moved. Sometimes it is because

someone else has gone on leave and new arrangements have to be made, but oftener,

we are assured, there is no ascertainable reason, and no thought is expended on the

question who should go to which place. Thus a Mr Franklin at Voi, who liked being

alone there, was being superseded, not as punishment or anything - by Mr Roberts and

his wife who loathed the thought of the place. Even big-wigs, except the Secretariat

people who arrange these matters, find them entirely incomprehensible.

Then too we have met the people who, having always walked delicately and

considered what most of us would think fine style the merest decency, suddenly find

themselves in ‘reduced circumstances’- pensioned perhaps after service in India. To

live as they assume necessary in England is beyond their purse. In Kenya they can

command plenty of labour, play polo and so on, and if only they don’t live in a town

like Nairobi, they can do it, for them, very cheaply. On our tour round the mountain179

we lunched with some people of this type and very nice they were too. Their genteel

poverty amused me hugely. To me it would have been wealth. In this particular

instance, the people were booky, which is rare here, and it required all my manners,

inherited and acquired, to keep from sitting down on their Persian rugs and trying to

devour three magazines and four books at once. There are quite a number of these

retired folk in Kenya. I reckon they keep their farms and not their farms them.

Quite another sort of farmer is the young settler, often an ex-soldier, who has

come out during or just after the war and taken up the land allotted to him, often at a

high price. Some of these men have had a terribly hard time. It was thought for

instance, that fortunes were to be made out of hemp: acres of sisal were planted and

then the market changed, the war ending so suddenly being part of the cause. One of

these men told me that he and his wife had lived on posho (ground mealie, native’s

food) for months and months. They were still dwelling in a wattle and daub hut of

three rooms when we were there and yet, such is the difference of conditions in

178

Harold Woodruff (1877- 1966), Prof. of Pathology, 1913-29, Prof. of Bacteriology 1935-45, MU. 179

Probably Mt Kenya, at 5,199 mt it is the second highest mountain in Africa, and 93 km from

Nairobi, and near Meru, where they apparently met Mr Whitworth (see illus. 22).

86

Africa, even though this pair was still struggling, they could gives us meals as

elaborate as any I ever get in Melbourne, save at dinner parties. That is to say, they

can have servants. They are cheap as their food costs practically nothing and their

wages are about £2 a month. And time is of no object to them. Dinner of many

courses beginning at 8pm does not distress them in the least. Often they are lazy, yet

they don’t seem to mind working hard or late, provided they can sit a great deal in the

sun during the day, and talk or shout when anyone else works with them.

Also, however poor you maybe, it is easy to get your hot bath at any time.

Most folk have it about 7pm and dress for dinner. No wonder Mrs Mayers, whose

husband is the enterprising sugar man from Queensland, told me that life in Kenya

was like heaven for her. They had long been very rich, but in Queensland, whether or

no, she had often had to turn to and wash and cook and act housemaid for a houseful

of men. Here, when a thing wants doing, one shouts ‘Boy’. This may seem too rosy a

picture. But tho’ the native requires lots of supervision and some mistresses get

indignant with him for that, a capable and equable woman can, even on a small

income, entertain and have a house running smoothly with very little personal

exertion and a great deal of leisure for herself.

This Mrs Mayers has unintentionally chastened my proud spirit. I had been

much gratified by the fact that people do not place me as an Australian by my accent,

and even comment when they know we come from Melbourne, on my lack of our

particular brand of idiom and pronunciation. Sometimes, when the complimenter has

had an almost equally ugly provincialism of his or her own, I have felt amused; still I

was proud. But Mrs Mayers has cured me. The awful thought arises that perhaps I

speak as she does. She is so resolutely cultured in her speech, the poor old twang has

been so double locked in its skeleton cupboard that her a’s are as sharp as the French é

and she intones her sentences to prevent any drawl being vulgar or even ungenteel.

We both felt enraptured once when she lapsed and remarked that she had done so and

so for déze and déze and déze. But the little upward lilt at the end of every sentence I

cannot reproduce. Give me the good old Australian accent every time!

This lady was very kind indeed to us and was rather an interesting type as

well. Throughout her career she has resolutely clung to shirt blouses and high collars.

She looks most smart and tailor-made in them too, and when she sports evening

clothes there is none of that red iron-mark on the neck that afflicts us nearly all. She

looks about thirty-eight or forty, is erect and slight, and had ten children in twelve

years. She confided in me that she often wept at the prospect. I’d have looked out for

something more drastic I fancy, even if my accent had suffered neglect for the time

being, but I did not think I could be Oxonian enough to say so genteelly. By the way,

Elizabeth180

is not to read this bit, I know she won’t agree with me.

Mr Mayers has really done a rather wonderful thing in erecting the first sugar

mill in Kenya. His company is an Australian one throughout: he had to get all his

material with great difficulty of transport. He went down into Tanganyika territory

and brought up rails laid down by the Germans during the war – shipped them in Arab

dhows – tried to get up the coast more himself - … was wrecked – or nearly so on a

180

Probably Elizabeth Lothian (1871-1973), Classical Mistress at Melbourne Church of England Girls’

Grammar School (1914-46) and founding member of the Catalysts and the Lyceum Clubs (Ridley, p.

71). She was part of Jessie’s group of friends and they travelled together in Greece in 1923

87

reef – was slipped sic up by a captain of a ship he was to try and catch and had to

return by the dhow (in which he had gone out to meet him) at an unearthly hour of the

night and start a walk of some hundreds of miles.

Naturally, he is rather a belligerent little man, but his energy has already

heartened up other people who had thought the progressive days of Kenya were over.

One man, after seeing the mill, went home and planted twenty acres of maize because

he felt things were looking up! The Masters and Misses Mayers however, do not all

regard papa’s activities with approval. One young man threatens to return to his pals

in Australia even if he only gets £1 a week on a station181

. The girls go off on trips

every few months and started on one just before Mama came back from England.

‘Judge not, that ye be not judged’ but it does seem as if Mr and Mrs M had gone in

more for quantity than quality – yet the boys we saw were nice boys after-all. Perhaps

they are merely foolish enough to miss their friends and not to recognize that money

is everything - money and a cultured accent. Perhaps they’d like to be able to say to

their former companions “Come roe nd one of these deze”. It’s certainly lonely; their

huts and ‘bandas’ compose the whole settlement.

Fragment only

Nakuru, where we stayed with the Weirs, is one of many farming districts in

the Great Rift Valley. We crossed its eastern escarpment going there and then, on our

way to the Mayers, climbed up the Western wall and then down again towards the

great lake. The valley has many extinct volcanoes and one can look down on to,

almost into, craters from the train. The scenery is often very, very pretty, but not as

impressive as one would expect – the soil is soft and has weathered so much that

sharp, bold outlines are rarely seen and the walls of the valley are smoothed almost

level with the plain in many places. Victoria Nyanza too, is not startling at all. On the

journey from Nairobi we had passed several lakes and at the Weirs we were almost on

Lake Nakuru. So our first glimpse of Lake Victoria looked very like the others. Only

if you sail round it do you realise its immensity and that, I have no intention of doing,

as it can get extremely, indeed unnecessarily, rough, even making its Captains seasick

we hear. Georgie I hope, will go round it, I hope – in fact I think I have persuaded her

to do so, and not wait till that future visit to Africa which she is already promising

herself. The lake behaved admirably however for the twenty-four hours in which we

crossed from Kisumu to Entebe. I think I will try my hand at a little map of the

remainder of this space and then bid you a fond farewell.

Illus. 21. Sketch map of region (JW)

181

Station – presumable a cattle property, known as ‘stations’ in outback Australia

88

89

Map 7. Uganda route

90

UGANDA

Covering the period 21 Aug- 25 Sept., including time spent at Entebbe,

Kampala and Fort Portal and then travelling by boat to Jinja. The continuation of the

Uganda report appears in the Diary record, which follows after the end of the letters.

Kenya Colony, Bungu. On a Sugar plantation not

19th

Aug 1922 far from Uganda Railway

[but then place and date changes to:]

Uganda - 2nd

Sept.

Dear Beth, Minnie, Effie,182

Having got so far, it seems I suddenly thought of my wrongs because I had

then heard nothing from anyone since May so I stopped. Now the address is Kampala,

Uganda and the date 2nd

Sept.

I had better begin again, Dear all of you, including Thomas, and if she is

home, Flos Greig. (Effie to keep it for me)

We reached Entebbe, our entrance to Uganda, on 21st August, after an

extremely pleasant trip of about twenty-two hours on the Clement Hill from Kisumu.

Pleasant, that is, physically. The lake was calm, as it often is not, the boat was clean,

we had a beautiful deck cabin and, for the only time in my life, I enjoyed three meals

on a ship. But our spirits were rather damped by the very nice Captain Blanco and a

very disagreeable fellow passenger, Mr Gosling, Chief Treasurer of Kenya, who was

bringing on, or at all events, accompanying £100,000 from Kenya into this country.

He was ugly, he was fat. He had pursed up under-lids and […] peered at us over them.

Unlike in everything else, he and the Captain agreed in positively scouting the

idea of our continuing our route into Egypt via the Soudan. It was unhealthy, it was

uninteresting, it was cruelly hot, it was the worst part of Africa, the natives were the

… weeds, they were unreliable, women shouldn’t go alone. Moreover the Nile was

sinking, there was no hope of us getting thro’ by the Samuel Baker from Butiaba to

Nimule; from Wadelai where apparently the Nile widens out into shallows, we should

have to go in rowing boats among crocodiles. 183

You will observe the alternative – to turn on our steps after seeing Uganda,

and then, after a long journey through Kenya to Mombasa, embarking there on

steamer, when we could get one, and proceeding to Port Soudan, one of the most

hopeless spots in Africa. Thence we could travel on to Khartoum and so on down the

Nile.

182

Probably her relatives - cousins Beth, being Elizabeth Fulton (married Maconochie) and Minnie

Fulton. Effie was perhaps Josephine Watson (m W Scott), her aunt who was only 12 years older than

Jessie – or else Effie Stillwell 183

By staying longer in Uganda they did manage to sail through this swampy area

91

Soon after we arrived at Entebbe we were able to telephone Mr Nelson at

Kampala. He consulted various people who knew the district. There is nothing

appalling to be feared at all. It is uncomfortable and some risk – as in most places, of

fever: that is all. By waiting a month, which alas, will cut that time off of Egypt, we

can make better arrangements and perhaps escape a little heat. So we leave Jinja on

the 4th

October and if we don’t miss any connections, will be at Khartoum early in

November. If I feel financial I may cable but in any case you will hear from

Georgie’s Miss Wasley184

how we have fared long before this letter will have arrived

to cause you any anxiety. Our stages are:

І. Jinja to Namasagali: by rail

Π. Namasgali by steamer to Masindi

Ш. Masindi port for 39 miles by motor van

ІV. 8 mile walk over sand by our own effort or carried

Butiaba to …………………………………………………. Nimule carrier (3 days)

Nimule to Rejaf by porters and carriers 7-10 days journey

… we are carried on chairs, camp early as possible at rest houses and where our own

cook and houseboy get us meals and baths when we camp from, say, 10am till 5am

next morning

………..

………..Wadelai to Rejaf 11-13 days with about 35 porters and carriers, all told we

should make an impressive party. 185

One of the three men I referred to is to be, if possible, an ex-sergeant of the

K.A.R. - Kings African Rifles. He’s for swank and to make the porters get up in good

time. Well, well, we shall see what we shall see and at least we will have, I presume,

the satisfaction of having said boo to Mr Gosling.

[Entebbe]

In spite of Herculian efforts to the contrary, I seem incapable of beginning at

the beginning. Here I have even begun at the future, but now return to Entebbe.

It is a park-like place, this miniature capital of Uganda. There is a native or

Indian bazaar, I don’t know which, as I haven’t seen it, but the houses of government

officials are dotted about on green sward under large trees, often immense trees and

often gums. Often, as in the case of the Anglican Church, there is not even a hedge

between one building or another, but the spaces are large and the occasional hedges

afford some privacy. Bougainvillea grows in profusion. Now and again there is an

hibiscus. All about here is English and yet tropical.

The banker and his wife are the only heads of families not connected with the

government services – even the nurses and the doctors are civil servants, and Mr

Montgomery, with whose wife we stayed, is the veterinary advisor to Uganda,

Zanzibar and Tanganyika territory. Naturally, he is on ‘Safari’ a great deal. He was

away during our visit, taking with him the two principal house boys, one of whom,

184

Miss Wasley –perhaps an Australian Methodist missionary 185

This is a rough description and not exactly what happened or a correct description. Refer to her

report of that leg of the journey for correct description.

92

being Mohammedan, would be more useful to him in Zanzibar. Even so, with

depleted staff, Mrs Montgomery was able to treat us royally, having little dinner

parties for us, or to be more exact, for Georgie, nearly every night we were there

(three out of four). Sydney people; the Winters, came one night - he is a geologist.

The Banker and his wife (National Bank of India) came one night. They are as

Scotch as Scotch. She had a Scottish passion, like Miss Corbetts, for dress. She asked

me, in an anxious aside, if I could resist silks. I lied valiantly and said I could not and

I then heard the joys of life in Aden, where, at an Indian shop, silks of particular glory

could be purchased. All the men and women present hung on our [her?] words for the

lady, though fat, was young and had the knack of making her cheerful little

contributions to the discourse quite compelling. Her husband, even, has not got over

amusement at her. He does not like Entebbe; there is so little business there, so I said

I’d give him something to do the next day and I did.

Mrs Montgomery has three children, Bobbie aged seven, Tom186

and Mich

aged five. After we had been there a few hours, Tim, appros of nothing, announced in

a loud voice, that he liked me better than he did Miss Sweet, and while his mother and

I tried to cover this rather crude declaration, Bobbie constituted himself a herald to

Georgie to call her attention to it. She, poor thing, was not greatly harrowed as she

was suffering from an abscess that nagged all day and raged all night, but I was rather

gratified, not at his preference, but at his fancy for me. This spiritual affection was

followed – I wish to stress the order – by a cupboard love. He discovered some coins

in my bag and coveted them. So at Mr Gray’s next door I changed a florin into cents

(200) and with these, established a reputation for colossal wealth. Tim would hurl

himself onto me. ‘Miss Webb, will you give me 100 rupees?’ (ie florins, £10). ‘Tim I

will not!’ ‘Then will you give me two cents?’ I did. With 100 of them to the shilling, I

could scatter largesse in feudal style, and wish I could as easily beat down other

applicants for my money, vendors of native basket-ware, matting and drums for

instance. By the way Tom, the Bank of India has a branch at Kampala as well as at

Entebbe, which is the only place in Uganda mentioned in my letter of Introduction.

The Governor of Uganda, Sir Robert Coryndon187

, has just been promoted to

be Governor of Kenya, so, though he is a great friend of the Montgomery’s, we did

not meet him but we met the man and his wife, Mr and Mrs Elliot, who are to act in

the interval til his successor arrives. They had both been in Australia with the Munro

Fergusons188

, also in British Guiana - he had - and other places. So he was interesting

to talk to – but oh, how I should hate a woman’s life here in the tropics. Except the

nurse (an Australian, like the one at Tabora) and Miss Martin, a brilliant woman

experimenting on monkeys etc for sleeping sickness, they have nothing to do but visit,

rest in the afternoon, play games from four-six, wander into the club, play bridge till

[…] late dinner and then to bed. If they have any brains and patience, their servants,

who are numerous, soon do everything by clockwork, but it seems difficult indeed. I

think most find it impossible to do anything with their leisure. The climate is beautiful

but is somehow dangerous to children who grow up delicate and pasty-faced unless

sent away to cold climates between five and ten. Also, one soon becomes lazy, and

186

She initially refers to him as ‘Tom’, then reverts to ‘Tim’ 187

Sir Robert Coryndon, see FN 170 188

Sir Ronald Munro Ferguson (1860-1934), controversial Governor General of Australia 1914-20, and

recognized for his contribution to forestry, science and the beautification of Melbourne.

93

calls ‘Boy’, for any blessed thing one wants. Many people say too, that people’s

tempers deteriorate here. It may be liver – it may be having an inferior race to lord it

over. Luckily here in the Baganda part of Uganda there are distinct limits to this – as

the Baganda are easily the most talented race in British East Africa – the most talented

I have seen anywhere. I have realized that during the last few days at Kampala.

[Kampala]

Kampala is so called from one of its hills, Mpala, on which Captain Lugard

explored in 1890. Mpala is a Luganda word for certain antelope which used to be kept

on this hill. As a matter of fact the town-ship is now scattered over seven hills, or so I

am told. The hotel is built on the slopes of one, facing up it on to the golf club, which

makes a very pretty green skyline, especially after four when the players are on it.

On another hill is the Kabaka’s house, the court of justice, treasury etc all run

entirely, or almost entirely, by the natives. On another, Mtesa’s tomb and the house of

the women who guard and keep up the rites and so on. As one comes by road from

Entebbe (we came in a motor van), one’s first glimpse of Kampala is of two peaks

that look high like the mountains on the Italian lakes, and like them again, they seem

to be crowned with buildings. One had a dome, one a castle. As a matter of fact, one

of them is a new RC mission, yet in the building and the other with the Dome,

belongs to a rival Church Missionary Society. Rivalry here has led to actual warfare in

the past, and the present Kabaka (King) was appointed because a much more

intelligent candidate was an RC189

and the C.M.S190

had special influence at the time.

There is, by the way, no association of disloyalty with Catholicism here. The

discarded Prince Joseph, was and is, ardently pro-British. My informant is an

Australian ADC. “God’s own country” is well represented in Africa, the attraction,

whether to minister it, convert it or exploit it, is in nine cases out of ten, the Native.

When one gets into the commercial European part, one is most struck by the

fact that most of the buildings are two storeyed. Railway Stations in Tanganyika

territory were often so, but private houses there, and actually all buildings except

hotels in Kenya, are of the bungalow type.

As Georgie can’t walk up hills and there are, of course, no trams, we wander

about in double rickshaws, two natives to push and one to pull with the same strange

desire for a maximum of effort that one notices in them sometimes – as for instance,

when they carry things on the palms of the hands, held upwards – the natives elect to

sing or chant when going up hill. The man in front starts a running fire of questions,

relating, we’re told, to the journey and, in uncomplimentary terms, to his freight. “Are

we to take these heavy old frumps to Mtesa’s tomb?” for example. He does not pause

for an answer but the rear men interject monotonously “he’ rene, he’ rene” till the

front man is out of breath and the anthem ceases abruptly.

Our chief expeditions have been to Mtesa’s tomb and to the offices of the

native government. Mtesa was King of the Baganda when Speke in 1860 and Stanley

in 1875 came to the country. Why there are no tombs to visit of preceding Kings I do

189

RC – Roman Catholic 190

Church Missionary Society

94

not know, but this is sufficient by itself to show that the Baganda are a superior

people. You enter through a very fine native-hut into a courtyard. This leads into

another round [in] which are other beautiful huts of royal widows and female

relatives, while facing one, just opposite the entrance, is a really magnificent

specimen of native architecture erected over Mtesa’s grave. The roof is thatched down

to the ground very beautifully on all sides but the front. Its front is supported firmly

on rafters made of bundles of reeds bound together. The ceiling is of fine matting. The

roof is so high it has to have a lightning conductor and the hut is huge. Just how

large, it is hard to estimate because it is divided into aisles by the rows of polished

saplings which support the length of the roof.

Straw is on the floor and to the right of the grave is a fire which smoulders.

How the whole place is not all on fire I can explain only by the constant presence of

guardians. The grave is covered with a reddish piece of cloth and in front of it, is an

array of leaf shaped copper spears and small polished clubs. So, on entering, you

seem, but for the straw on the floor, to be entering a Cathedral and looking towards an

altar – the spears with the raised tomb behind them. On the left is another grave, that

of Mtesa’s ruffianly son Mwanga, the father of the present Kabaka191

. In various

corners are ceremonial drums.

As one grew used to the light, one saw there were numbers of women and

children sitting about, contemplating or praying, or, most probably, doing nothing.

One rose and came out after us, a most lordly creature. She was tall and elegant, and

had the graceful carriage of the native and the features, rounded rather than blunt, of a

handsome boy. Black of course, with short hair and liquid eyes, she was swathed in

cerise satin from below the shoulders to the ankles. It was rolled some just above the

knees. Two children came to her with something and knelt to give it – but as far as we

can gather, she was no one in particular. Whatever her ancestory, she was a

Maconachie192

in dress all right.

Through some mistake, a display of drummers which Mr Nelson had arranged

for, did not come off, so from the tomb we went over to the house of a Baganda

princess, the sister of either Mtesa or Mwanga, I forget which. It is hard to guess the

ages of natives. This one looked old but may have been a girl when Mtesa died in

1884. The mud hut was spacious compared to the tiny ones of the south and was

divided into rooms. The floor was covered into fine matting which I coveted for The

Flat, and the lady crouched with an attendant on a red mattress at one end of her front

room. Chairs were evolved for us from somewhere out side.

A native, Léo, very shy and deferential, from Mr Nelson’s office, acted as

interpreter. He explained that out of respect he spoke at first to the princess’s maid,

not to her, and also addressed the princess when she questioned him, as Sir, as if she

were a man. The old lady bade him tell us she was pleased to see us – that she got 100

rupees a month from the Kabaka (£10), that she had never married because only

single women could attend the King’s tomb and she had remained unwed for her late

brother’s sake. To remain unmarried to keep house for one’s brother always seemed

dull to me before, but it’s a reckless orgy compared with doing so to tomb-keep for

191

Kabaka – Baganda King 192

Jessie’s maternal cousin Elizabeth (Beth) Fulton married a Maconachie.

95

him, I should imagine. There was nothing whatever in the room but the floor

coverings – nothing. We supposed they just eat and talk all day, for the princess can’t

walk now. Native women age very young. Mr Nelson asked her to accept the present

of a rupee. She did so, but indicated, I believe, that more would have been seemlier.

So it would. But for sheer talent, vacuity and dullness, can you imagine a drearier way

of living on £10 a month?

The day after this visit (ie Saturday 2nd

September) we saw the cheerier picture

of masculine royalty at work, and masculine subject at play.

In the morning, Georgie and I by rickshaw, and Léo on his bicycle, went up to

where the native government had its headquarters. Uganda is a protectorate, and this

part of it, now called the Province of Buganda, having never actually been conquered

by us, is protected by a special treaty. In the other provinces the British can do much

they cannot do here; here they have to work indirectly. I don’t mean craftily – to

induce the Kabaka and his Ministers and his Parliament of notables to do what our

government thinks best.

When Speke and Stanley came here they were much impressed by the superior

civilization of the Baganda (by the way, ganda is the essential part of the three names

people use for themselves and their country – Buganda to the place (Uganda is the

Swahili for it), lu ganda is their language, Muganda is the Swahili member of the

tribe, and Baganda is the plural). The form Uganda is now used of the whole

protectorate in which there are many other but less important tribes and Buganda is

the name of the province. There, isn’t that informative? Georgie herself couldn’t have

done better – only she would have added the height above sea level of the place and

the average mean height of the inhabitants.

I am anxious now to read their first-hand accounts and see how much we have

added. Anyhow, everyone seems agreed that Europeans have had to stimulate only

and not introduce wholesale, a brand new civilization. What we saw on Saturday was

amazing and simply could not have been acquired by ordinary South and South

Eastern natives since 1890. We were received at various stages of the morning by the

Chief Justice, Chief Treasurer and Prime Minister (in order of their appearance). We

saw too, the Kabaka’s cousin, Prince Joseph, whose religion debarred him from the

throne. He is now head of the native labour bureau, where men are enrolled to work

on the roads, get their exemptions, and I think, pay their taxes [in] lieu of services. He

is a handsome native with intelligent eyes, and more aristocratic features than the rank

and file: he was greatly gratified when we praised the roads. He wore ordinary

European dress – I think – as a matter of fact I am afraid I forgot to notice his legs.

Many of them ie the natives, are European to the waist and then on their feet – boots

are a sort of indication of superiority. Headmasters always have them, the rest going

barefooted. But plenty of the high clan folk wear their kanzu under their coat and over

their trousers, and look like women in old fashioned coats and shirts. However, in

case you’re really anxious about it, I think I may say HRH193

, who has left a slender

and dark impression on my mind, was tailored throughout.

193

His Royal Highness

96

The Chief Justice, who looks pure negro, had on a kanzu (night gown) with a

clock (in the stitching sense) up the middle and a thick tweed morning coat such as

one might see any day in Melbourne. He did not look impressive. In fact, they all

three have a mixture of European and native dress, Treasurer, Judge and Prime

Minister or Grand Vizier. Two courts were held up while proceedings were explained

to us. In one, a number of Chiefs on each side of the room presided over by the Chief

Justice at a table at one end, were deciding a case about land. One man’s land, after

being surveyed, was found to include that part of another man’s land on which the

latter’s father was buried. Judgement had not been given but was to be for the

plaintiff.

This case was being tried in the administrative or political court because some

item in it touched on the Constitution under the Uganda agreement afore mentioned.

Only natives present I hope you observe, and yet this subtlety as it might seem, was

not fully comprehended.

We next went into the ordinary court where an askari and an ordinary native

were having a case between them tried. Each had a little dock to stand in, but which

was the accused, as Leo called him, I failed to discover. The criminal which ever was

obliged by getting into the dock at the command of the Chief Justice, and then they

each slipped out again. Proceedings were evidently being suspended while we were

shown the rest of the place. Everything is in order, records are kept of every letter

received from the four District Commissioners or sent to him, “ “ “ “

“ 194

or sent to the Police Commissioner eg births and deaths, or transfers of land.

They have typewriters and telephones, and an askari near the Treasury in khaki red

fez and red binder and puttees, tho no boots. This is the dress of all askaris here, but

this one has the unique distinction of a red lead pencil stuck in his puttees.195

The treasurer – all his treasure, went into two small safes however – was much

impressed with our intelligence. Mr Nelson had told us not to be reticent, and with

perfect truth we told them in answer to a question translated by Léo as “What has

stricken you most in Africa?” that we found what they were showing us most

wonderful of all and the Treasurer listened while Leo elaborated, nodded his head

solemnly and intoned in the way all attentive natives do in conversation with each

other – ah – ah-ah constantly. Then he bade Leo tell us it was of great pleasure to

show us anything as we understood already! By this time the Sekibobo196

had joined

the cortege so Georgie and I, the Katikiro197

or P minister (pronounced kiteek’ero),

the Treasurer, the Chief Justice, his clerk and this other man who is a Saza Chief ie

Chief Chief of a county, with minor chiefs under him, back to the Kabaka’s office that

looked on to a flower garden, and thence to the outside of his private house, an ugly

villa redeemed by the beautiful native reed work and matting on the roof of his

veranda.

194

Her notations

195 Below knee leggings worn by soldiers, a long narrow piece of cloth wound tightly and spirally

round the leg, and serving both as a support and protection, worn especially by riders, and taking the

place of the leather or cloth gaiter.

196 Sekibobo - Baganda chief

197 Katikero – Baganda Prime Minister

97

He himself was not there. They would not like him to be treated as a show

figure. But we had seen him in full native costume at the send off of Sir Robert

Coryndon the Tuesday before. He is tall and handsome, twenty-six years of age, and

he wore a white kanzu with a red robe over it. His Katikiro had been there too,

similarly robed but in another colour, plum I think, a much more dignified costume

for natives than the hybrid one of everyday wear. Finally, we asked these dignitaries

would they be photographed. Rather. So they stood as anxious to look their best, yet

quite as unconscious as obliging children. Natives are rather terrified of having a

photograph taken or love it.

There is [?] growing up an intermediate group that consents for money, but

this will soon develop into the second. I have always been afraid to hurt an educated

native by letting them see me snap him, but there’s no need for such delicacy so often

as not they ask you “Madam, would you be so kind as to take my photograph and to

give me a copy”. On the other hand some think it affects their health adversely and

run like the wind when they see a camera levelled at them.

As we were leaving, one of the clerks came up to me and in perfect English

requested me to come next Tuesday and photograph his football team. I was so

startled as all but Prince Joseph and the Sekibobo had talked Luganda that I consented

and now have to keep my word. I have as much notion how to photograph black

footballers, twenty-two of them, with a small camera, as I have of dancing a mazurka.

Thank heaven it is some distance and there will be no other whites to witness my

antics with my camera legs. These I rarely use, but a snapshot would not meet the

requirements of so important an occasion. Nor is Georgie available in my stead. She

has gone off round the Lake.

But isn’t it all a mixture? Modern administrative and business methods and a

desire to be photographed, Kanzus and beautiful coats – and tomtoms. I nearly forgot

those and they were the most thrilling part of our morning’s entertainment. In more

beautiful huts like small copies of Mtesa’s tomb, situated in a courtyard near the

Kabaka’s house, were all manner of players and all manner of drums and other native

instruments. In one there was a piano or organ of drums, that is drums graduating

from tiny to big, and making different sounds. It was most exciting. There were three

shows altogether. To each group we paid a florin for division among them, and one lot

startled us by prostrating itself in gratitude by burying its faces in the straw, and then

kneeling on their heels and cutting the air downwards with their clasped hands. We

laughed outright, for we presumed that they were not really grateful for, say, the 10th

part each of 2/-; but we apparently did not do the right thing; our hosts were surprised

by our amusement.

After all this we were both tired and hungry. We came back to the hotel, fed,

rested, then went forth to a minor Chief’s hideous Europeanised house which we did

not enter – to see some wrestling. It was interesting to see the native enjoying

themselves in their own way, without missionary or other encouragement. Tho’ we

were the occasion of the present show, numbers of other natives watched them and it

was obvious they all revelled in it, performers and audience alike. There were only a

few wrestlers, which enabled one to see better what was going on: Mr Nelson said it

was the best show he had seen. Two men were especially good. One, who added to

98

shirt and trousers a leopard skin round his waist, was the more spectacular: the other a

tall slender youth quite Greek in the calm of his countenance during the struggle, was

probably even more skilful than the other. The men lent forward on each other, either

gripping the waist of the opponent or locking their wrists across his back in a most

remarkable way. Their chins rested on each other’s upper arm and it looked as if they

tried to topple each other over by means of it as well as of their arms. It was fair to

trip each other up but they stood so far apart and were leaning at such an angle that it

was very difficult to do.

All the while a choir kept up 1. a beating of drums, twanging of native fiddles 2. a

monotonous yet exciting chant and 3. a clapping of hands.

Illus. 22. Sketch of a head-dress (JW)

We sat on chairs and watched and tried to get snapshots. When a man was

thrown there were roars of applause and the victor simply triumphed, exulted round

the ring. After trotting to the end away from the choir he would pause in front of us,

the more dramatic

Some fairly ghastly relics of old practices remain too [...] not among the

Bagama proper. About three weeks ago three men were hanged before 5000

spectators for killing and eating a little girl of eleven. The chief perpetrator was

childless, and, in spite of superficial Christianity, accepted his father’s verdict that he

could have no child till he had eaten a girl of another tribe. He caught a Baganda girl,

killed her and invited a friend to the feast. His wife, a Baganda woman refused to

cook it, was beaten and ran away but did not tell. However, suspicion fell on him, he

was tried, confessed and incriminated the others. Then the wife turned up and

corroborated the story, and he, her father, his friend were executed. The young

Baganda are very indignant that the story has got about the finding of Baganda’s

cannibals, and all were keen that the murderers should be drastically dealt with.

On the whole it is the simplicity, childishness that contrasts most in the

Baganda with their marked ability. I have had lent to me a book written by the

Schibo198

and translated into English about his visit with the Katikiro to England to

see the coronation of Edward VΠ. The translation keeps close to the original, it says,

and one is struck first with the close observations of the writer and then with the

extraordinary impressions made on him of lifts, shops, trains, houses and

manufacture. Of course this is twenty years or so after, still much of it expresses the

198

The Schibo was Ham Mukassa, who accompanied the Katikiro on his trip to England for the

coronation in 1902 and later wrote Uganda’s Katikiro in England, which was re-published by Simon

Gikandi, Manchester University Press, 1998, based on the English translation by Rev. Ernst Miller in

1904.

99

native’s attitude to things European. He says, for instance, “The things of the

Europeans are always amazing …” and I thought to myself, that if we were always

wondering at these things which we saw while we were on the way, when we reached

England itself we should be like the Apostle of our [love?] … when he saw the

wonders of God which he had never seen before; and when he wrote them down in his

book he had just compared them to earthly things he knew, tho’ they were not really

like them.

I, in the same way of telling you these things, must just compare them to the things

you know, tho’ really they are not like them at all, as there is nothing in Uganda to

which you can compare the English things.

Later on in England they went to a show and were amazed at the sheep and the

shearing “So we understood what we had heard in the prophecy about our Lord. He

was brought as a sheep to the slaughter, as a sheep before its shearer is dumb. He

opened not his mouth, for we saw it being done. They shear the sheep every year for

the sheep are the barkcloth199

trees of the English.”

Incidentally, this indicates a fact in Uganda’s History – the great part played

by the Missions in Education. The Baganda are practically all Christian, or

Mohammedans. Sometimes in the same family there would be RCs, protestants and

others […] illiterate. The head of the Mohammedans here, a young fellow about

sixteen I fancy, was not allowed to go to RC or protestant school but has cousins

educated at them and feels his own defective education very keenly. One more remark

and I’ll end.

The Sekibobo200

in his book, is ardently pro-British and so anti-Germans that

Sir Harry Johnston201

, who wrote the introduction, protests the book was written in

1902. All the English, he says, are kind and wise. They will, he hopes, gradually make

all natives like them. An unkind Englishman cannot be really English (NB. I wonder

if many of his humble compatriots in hotels would agree with him. I doubt it) but the

Germans are savages. Never travel on a German boat. The English are to all other

nations as the sun to the moon. And when the English have planned a thing and find

they have been wrong, they do not allow it to happen!!!

Well, I must say the DCs and ADCs we have met as well as the missionaries,

seem to have a most unselfish standard of conduct towards natives – but there are

others

Au revoir. I am sorry this letter is so much longer than it need be to convey the

same amount of news, but for once I haven’t been working tramping about arranging

utensils and victuals for our Nile journey – nothing much – but in this climate one

tires so I could not write and concentrate better if I were paid for it. As for my diary,

Mtesa’s tomb princess - £10 a month - that and the date is a fair specimen of it these

days.

199

Bark was beaten and used as cloth by the Ugandans before European materials were introduced. 200

This is incorrect – it was actually the Schibo, the secretary of the Katikiro, an easy mistake to make 201

Sir Harry Johnston (1858-1927), British explorer, botanist, linguist and colonial administrator. In

1899 he was sent to Uganda as Special Commissioner, and later concluded the Buganda Agreement.

100

You might ring up Jean Wilkinson to see if she wants to read it, but the group

has seen the last budgets, up to Entebbe, and if all are arriving together, they won’t

probably feel inclined, tho’ for politeness they might say they would, to wade through

this.

With love and hoping to have so much more to read from you all at Khartoum

that I won’t have a minute in which to write to you. Love from Jess.

[Fort Portal/Toro]

They then travelled from Kampala by car for 200 miles to Toro district, in the

west of the country, close to the Ruwenzori Mountains. Fort Portal is the main town

in the area. This fragment, no date, was written from there, and apparently to Effie,

Minnie and Sheila

[…] but whether or no, and methinks I hear Sheila’s snort of indifference [?] on that

subject – you all know my feelings for mountains, as for dogs, is independent of their

history or utility. I may as well state forthwith that it was to see from a distance, not to

climb even part of the range that we went, and that like Kilimanjaro and Kenya,202

Ruwenzori203

was not kind to us. We saw a magnificent range in this instance but the

snows of the glacier were hidden in cloud or mist. But the scenery to Fort Portal was

attractive, the soft puce [?] road ran through green all the time, sometimes open

country, sometimes reedy, sometimes hilly, and sometimes thro’ palm trees or thro’

banana plantations. A distant lake lent variety and the road curved or even looped in

an exciting manner. There was one big coffee shamba204

which made me wonder why

people don’t try to grow a shrub or two just for its pretty shape and pinkish berries,

and altogether the trip both going and coming, tho not spectacular, was pleasant.

Otherwise I personally was disappointed... bored 205

for the DC of Toro was

away on safari ... met his dozen of porters setting out the day after our arrival, and

instead of meeting him – a most interesting man by all accounts, and Margaret

Peterson, the authoress206

, who is the wife of one of the subordinates of Mr Fisher207

,

we stayed with the Mission and met only missionaries or folk moved by missionary

ardour to nurse or educate the natives. Georgie stayed with a Miss Briggs, an

Australian nurse to whom we had a letter of introduction; I with the Arch Deacon’s

wife, Mrs Lloyd208

. Both were kindness itself to both of us. But Minnie, Effie and

Sheila, I am no Christian and, adaptable as I strive to be, I felt at the end, like a poor,

sick little chameleon that had to change suddenly from a secular yellow to a clerical

202

All three mountains are so high they are often swathed in cloud. Mt. Kilimanjaro can be seen from

the Mombasa train on a clear day, which is perhaps why she mentions it for they did not travel close to

it, as far as can be ascertained 203

Ruwenzori Mountains (known as the ‘Mountains of the Moon’) 204

Vegetable garden/farmlet or farm 205

Gap caused by tear in page 206

Margaret Peterson (1883-1933) was a famous English novelist and poet. 207

Fisher married fellow Church Missionary Society member Ruth Hurditch in 1902. She wrote On the

Borders of Pygmy Land (1905) which describes their time in Toro, and Twilight Tales of the Black

Buganda (1911) 208

Mr and Mrs A.B. Lloyd came out to Toro at the same time as Ruth Fisher, in 1900 (see Fisher’s

1905 book)

101

grey with streaks of hospital red in it. They are doing good work and they are good

people and it was refreshing to feel the energetic atmosphere – no slumber from 2 –

4pm here. There was plenty to do and it was done eagerly. But it was delightful to me

to get back to the Poultons for the three or four days before our departure to Jinja.

Georgie, on the other hand, but for the fact that her diet was somewhat ascetic,

was in her element. She is truly religious, in a good sense, and over and above it,

fundamentally Methodist. There were, moreover, people, white people, to be kind to

and be admired by for the kindness, and the brightly orthodox naturally seem to her, a

satisfactory audience. My hostess was not truly missionary, hankered for the fleshpots

I fancy, dressed well tho simply, and had savoir faire, but she was nervy and narrow,

and never stopped talking about herself. She showed me photographs for a whole

afternoon and a whole evening and I must have aged under the process for she asked

me if I remembered the visit of the Duke of Clarence209

to Australia. I simply shook

my head but felt a little depressed for vainly of myself, I know that the appearance of

comparative youth is departing from me – glare, chiefly I think, is the cause, but the

lines grow apace.

Toro is a volcanic district. The day we were arriving there was a small

earthquake which we did not, however, notice in the car, and our one little excursion

there was to a crater lake210

in the hills down the precipitous sides of which, in the old

days, witches used to be rolled. The Mission is near a hill in which the King of Toro

now lives, but which in pre-Christian days, was supposed to be the abode of devils.

The missionaries themselves had to interfere to plant some of the trees on it when the

natives, in their new religious zeal, desired to cut down everything associated with old

beliefs. Beautiful grey birds settle at evening on the branches of the two trees that

alone remain. I have, I think, a photo of the place to show you, but fear not – you shall

be repaid for all Georgie’s expenditure, for my experience at Mrs Lloyd’s hands has

taught me surely what I have long suspected, should be seldom and well chosen. By

the way Effie, I have sent some that may interest you, tho’ certainly not for their

intrinsic merit. In a letter that, after going to several small folk, should ultimately

reach Peter211

I hope they will be still visible when they do.

We have been buying basket ware which cannot be taken with us to

Khartoum. At the mission I got the chance of a beautifully made native basket with a

lid which, in Kampala, I should have had to pay at least 10/- and up and, if I could get

it at all in Melbourne, 25/-. Mrs Lloyd got it for 3/- and after paying for some stuff to

sew it in and 5/- or so for postage, I think it is still cheap. I have sent it to you Effie c/-

Thomas, as I feared the customs people would pile it on if I sent it to Sheila at the

Book Club. If there is duty and if there is camage (as there must be) get Sheila to give

it to you, Effie, I am sorry to bother you, but trust the bother will come at as

inconvenient time as possible. Have a look at it and if you think the Club would like it

for magazines, please get Sheila to let Miss Felding know and it can be sent as a little

209

Duke of Clarence (1864-1892), the eldest son of Edward VΠ visited Australia as a young shipman

on a global voyage between 1879 and 1882 ie well before Jessie was old enough to remember such an

event. It was in the Duke of Clarence’s wife’s honour (the Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna of

Russia) that the Marie biscuit was created – not that this seemed to influence Jessie’s opinion of the

‘delicacy’ which was found everywhere they travelled. 210

Possibly Lake George which lies between Lakes Edward and Albert 211

Peter, apparently the daughter of Tom (see FN 216)

102

xmas memento from Africa. It may be a bit out of shape but if damped should soon

straighten. The lid which is now in, not on it, fits perfectly and if you don’t like it for

the Club, just get Mrs Bage212

to keep it for me. I might give it to someone for a

stocking basket but use your own discretion. I am sending a lot more bought here but

to be kept till January and then sent. Try to get the customs to let them in unopened as

they are truly only native basket ware, not for sale. I suggest getting Mrs Bage to keep

them all as she has room and I’d like the fun of showing them when I get home.

Sheila however, must part up (out of my account of course) for any expenses incurred.

[Kampala]

Well, after Toro we came straight to Mr and Mrs Poulton213

and have heard

ever so many yarns I meant to tell you but it’s getting late and I must stop except to do

a brag. I am ageing rapidly, as I told you before, all except my back hair which, for

some unknown reason, has blossomed out into its appearance of ten or twelve years

ago. Mrs Poulton goes into violent enthusiasms over it and, truth to tell, I admire it

much myself. Like most of the few compliments I receive, however, Mrs P’s are

backhanders. Heavens above woman, why do you do that glorious (!!!) stuff like that

– when I thought it beautifully dressed – and she had evolved a style of two plaits

crossed that make me feel as if I had on a tight toque, but which hides my wrinkled

brow and is so far becoming.

In Johannesburg I thought I was going white so this vagary is rather a relief,

unless it should be a capillary swan song and I awake some mornings to find myself

what Mrs Poulton (aged thirty or thereabouts and looking twenty-five) calls herself. A

poor little old lady in the middle of Africa.

Georgie’s health is much better and I was extremely bucked up by the

mountain air at Toro. I have been well all through but was beginning to feel inert.

Now once more I am alive and I hope fortified for a month in which Georgie and I

shall be very much a deux. She is looking forward - generously but maddeningly – to

“losing myself in your pleasure Jess, when we get to Egypt.” Alas, the deliberate

preparation for my ardours chills them, but surely to goodness, such a splendid

opportunity will fire me inspite of my hostess’s little foible. I am looking forward to it

immensely and only wish some of you could share it with me.

My love to you all three. Letters from you at Khartoum I hope – so far none

from Sheila, one from Min and, heaven bless her, four from Effie.

Yours affectionately, Jess.

Fragment only

Of the real life of the African people, we know no more at first hand, than we

do of African wild animals. We see most of the one in service, as we do most of the

other in zoos. We caught a glimpse of freer life on our trip round Kenya in the native

reserves and I was startled, nearly into stupor, by the sight of two giraffes on the Athi

212

Presumably Jessie’s friend Ethel Bage’s mother 213

At Kampala

103

Plains. We haven’t even heard a lion roar and the sight of elephant sniffing the wind is

for the chosen few, and not for us. Still, natives and wild animal life are all round us

and we have heard endless stories of both from folk in touch with both of them.

Uganda is a pastoral country; the chief wealth is in cattle and goats, the

women live mainly on milk in gourds, the men on milk and baked blood obtained by

shooting a cow skilfully in the jugular vein with an arrow and so bleeding her just

enough for immediate needs. Consequently, cattle diseases can easily spell famine,

natives being extraordinarily unadaptable in the matter of food and the work of the

veterinary department is of primary importance. The officials have consistently to go

“on safari” and have many opportunities of big game shooting and of meeting both

Chiefs and people.

In this lake214

, there are certain islands, the Sese islands, frequented by certain

deer which unluckily turned out to be the ‘intermediate host’ of sleeping sickness. The

natives died in such numbers that the remainder had to be deported and the islands left

for years. Now the disease, having died out, the natives are being gradually returned

and some stock sent over for experimental purposes.

From one of the group the other day, signs of distress were observed –

crocodiles it seems had become so un-used to interference that they were chasing the

newcomers all over the island. They were brought away again but when the men went

back to bring their stock it was gone – the spoor led to the water’s edge. Similarly, on

another island the hippos are so rampageous now that nothing can be grown there.

On the outbreak of disease among cattle, it is terribly difficult to be sure

quarantine is not broken; and in the back parts of the country natives are still

desperately superstitious and frightened of the witchcraft of the interfering white man.

From Uganda into Tanganyika territory and the Belgian Congo a wild rumour will go

that the stock inspector is bewitching the goats with a view to bewitching their

owners. It has been known to make the terrified people kill their own wealth in

hundreds. When, however, the Chiefs are won over and there is a general recognition

by folk that the vets are saving the cattle, ordinary self-interest has to be combated as

the wily capitalist, in search of a bear market, seeks to hurry his herds across the

quarantine boundaries.

Punishments allowed for this are, in most officials’ opinion, quite inadequate,

but if the sympathy of the Chief can be enlisted against the culprit, the tenderness of

the English governmental methods may be advantageously evaded. For instance, Mr

Poulton, one of the most delightful men I have ever met - with an extremely pretty

wife too, a most festive pair, was trying to turn back a terrible onslaught of

rinderpest215

in one of one of the cattle districts of Uganda. He caught a man with 400

herd just across into ‘clean’ country and was […]

214

Lake Victoria 215

Rinderpest (also cattle plague or steppe murrain) is an infectious viral disease of cattle, domestic

buffalo, and some other species of even-toed ungulates, including buffaloes, large antelopes and deer,

giraffes, wildebeests and warthogs. Outbreaks of the disease cause major disasters for cattle owning

communities.

104

On departing Kampala and en route to Jinja

S.S. Clement Hill between

Port Bell (Kampala) and

Jinja 10.55am

26th

September 1922

My dear Tom216

,

As you will have gathered from my family letters, I have heard nothing from

either you or from Sheila since leaving Johannesburg when I had a letter from you.

Consequently I know nothing of my business affairs. I am not however, worrying at

all about them, relying on hearing when I reach Khartoum. I am however, anxious at

the news we have received just a few days ago of the continued hostilities between

Greece and Turkey217

and of Britain’s ultimatum. It is heartbreaking to think of more

English blood being shed, and, from a strictly personal point of view, it is alarming to

think that my leave may be stultified by my not being able to travel to Greece, to say

nothing of complications in Egypt.

As a result of all this, I do not yet know where to ask you to send my next

supply of money. I have been to the best of my belief, moderate, but have already

exceeded the £100 I desired for Africa. Photography has run me into more pounds

than I can afford or endure to contemplate, so will you, on receipt of a cable from me

counselling perhaps the name of a place and the word “send” or “cable, cable or send

there accordingly, £300 pounds. If I have to my credit £300, let me have it; if I would

need to borrow to get it, send two hundred. If I say “cable” it will mean I am in a

hurry for it. If “send”, it can come less expensively for I want now to save the

bawbees.218

I wish I knew where to ask you to write showing me my position at the time

you receive this, but owing to uncertainty, I dare not now say Athens or even Cairo.

And, by the way Tom, if I ever cable without mentioning health would you mind

letting Sheila and Connie know and asking them to tell any enquiring friends that we

have got safely to the place whence the cable is sent?

To sum up, if you receive a cable “Send Athens” it means I want two or three

hundred pounds sent there at once but not by cable and also that I am quite well after

our excursion from Uganda to the Soudan. I think too, you may interpret it to mean

that a letter sent there explaining my finances will be in time to catch me at Athens or

whatever other town is indicated.

216

Tom was obviously managing her finances. He may have been Thomas Fulton, her cousin and son

of Agnes (Watson) and Alexander Fulton, and who was married to Jean Roake. They had a daughter. A

family relationship can be guessed at through the very informal tone use in her communications to him

and her mention of him having seen her family letters. ‘Peter’ was sometimes used as a girl’s name. 217

The 1920 Treaty of Sevres authorised the Greeks some territorial gains at the expense of the

Ottoman Empire but the Turks objected and successfully repelling the Greek advances at Smyrrna in

September 1922 which ended the hostilities 218

Bawbees, Scottish term for a half-penny

105

If you have several agents let Thomas Cook be the one you select, and should

the town be Rome, I can try both in the addresses of that ubiquitous firm. For if I can’t

get to Greece I don’t know where I will go – Rome or England I imagine. If I know

no more by the time I reach Khartoum, I may wire ‘arrived safely’ or something of

that sort, but otherwise I shall cable in emergency only or for money. So much for

verbosity, vagueness and business.

I suppose it will be two months before you receive this. If so, accept in

advance, my best wishes to you, Jean and Peter for the coming Xmas season. Peter

will get, I suppose, a letter I posted yesterday to go first to the Wilkinson children and

ultimately to her. It has some photographs – twelve – to illustrate and I hope they will

be recognizable when she gets them. If so tell her to keep them with my love. If not,

she must accept the will for the deed as I sent them to her last in the hope she might

like to have them.

You surmise that Africa might look different to Australian eyes from what it

does to English, was correct. Chiefly at present, I think of the quantity and quality of

service the women folk can obtain here – not for nothing but cheaply. Georgie has had

since we left Bukama, three personal boys in succession: Kolo in the Congo at 30 or

35 francs a month, the franc equalling about 5p, Combo from Nairobi to Jinja (where

we arrived today) at 30 rupees or florins a month, and 6p a day for posho or food, and

Cosea (to rhyme with Hosea) from Kampala to Rejaf at 20 rupees a month including

posho. You see there is a great variation between the Congo, Kenya Colony and

Uganda, but none can be called very expensive.

There are however, incidental expenses. One has to give them a blanket, at

least when they come travelling, pay their fares each way, and their wages for the

minimal time it can take them to return to their loving wives (possibly with another

collected en route). For instance, we have to have a cook to come with us from

Nimule to Rejaf, nine or ten day’s safari. But we must get him at Kampala or Rejaf

and pay him for at least two months, merely for his nine day’s exertions. As in India,

each does comparatively little, except the cooks whose day is from about 7am to any

time at night. Our friends the Poultons keep eight, a head ‘boy’, a second ‘boy’, a

pantry ‘boy’, a moto (boy in our sense), a youngster who does all sorts of jobs

including caddying, a dobre (to wash), a cook and two Shamba or garden ‘boys’. In

addition, two others bring water and wood. Together they cost £11 pounds a month.

They provide their own food, not unassisted by scraps from the Poulton’s table, and

the cook gets 25 or 30 florins.

As you observe, all the servants are masculine, except an occasional ayah here

for children. Elsewhere the men are the nurses too. Native men in short, do all the

work for us and native women all the work for their men. Combo and Cosea today –

the one way in which their service to Georgie overlaps – had their small bundles

carried by women of ours - two attendants selected the smallest, and the rest were

borne by temporary porters at a reward each of ten florin cents - of which there are

fifty in a shilling. On the whole too, these servants are good servants and obedient as a

rule, without servility. Old fashioned manners here are most deferential, the whites

being accorded the respect due to Chiefs. For instance, Mrs Poulton’s old cook came

to visit her week or so ago - as soon as she went out to the kitchen he fell on his

106

knees while her present servants flocked round like a chorus, repeatedly thanking him

for having come to visit the memsahib.

The connection between both Kenya and Uganda on the one hand, and India

on the other, is remarkably close. Even on our small acquaintance here, three or four

were born in India, many more have come from work there, and numbers of Indian

officials, civil and military, settle in retirement in Kenya – especially, instead of

England. This connection is reflected to some extent in ordinary speech; while Sir or

Master is Swahili, Bwana; lady wife or madam is memsahib; a master craftsman or

expert in anything is a funde – but I’m not sure really whether that is an example of

what I mean – and pukka is a general term of approbation. You know of course, that

Indians themselves are legion in Kenya and Uganda, and the Goan – with Portuguese

name, is abroad in the land. Da Silvas and de Souzas are masters of many going

concerns and along with other Indians, and are found as post officers and station

masters all over the country.

Here they are more contented than in Kenya where the Indian problem, of

which you may have heard, is often extremely acute. They want equality with the

white, to build their houses next to his and to have as much political importance as he.

But, the white, objecting to the smell of ghee, to the hammering of metal work at any

hour of the day and night, the difference between oriental and English ideas of women

now, and having besides, a very strong sense of his own superiority, refuses both. The

Indians’ English is choice, not to say stilted, and their transition of thought is different

from ours. At the Treasury in Entebbe an Indian was required to send in an estimate of

what he thought it would cost him to go with his family to do a certain job-of-work in

the country. He sent it in, adding “The estimate does not include breakages, childbirth

or other similar sundries”!

So far Goans are the best photographers we have met, they alone having done

justice to our feeble attempts at mapping little records of the trip. That, I may tell you,

is no easy task in African light, which contrary to all appearances, requires longer

exposures than can be give to a moving object.

Written just after leaving Jinja and heading through central-northern Uganda

to Lake Albert and then down the ‘Albert’ Nile to Nimule on the border in the Sudan.

No date or address

Dear People, as some of you already know we have delayed our journey north

in order that the Nile might rise sufficiently to save us going in row boats from

Mahagi219

[or Wadelai] to Nimule instead of a steamer direct from Butiaba and that

also the weather might have time to become a little cooler. We have stayed therefore

six weeks in Entebbe, Kampala and Jinja with one excursion to Fort Portal from

Kampala before setting out as we have done today on our trip by rail (five hours),

boat, and safari to Khartoum. I have the feeling that we have not [?] acquired such

gallons of information, so we certainly do and perhaps ought in our travels, or else

having passed thro the very efficient filter of my attention, it has reached my brain by

small quantities only. However, we have met some jolly people. Since setting out

again on our travels ie after leaving Jinja – I have felt curiously depressed, whether

219

Actually the Port, as Mahagi is up the hill some miles away

107

because I mind leaving them, which I do not think is the case, as I’ll meet those I like

in England, or premonitions of events to come, or merely that I want a rest from

hotels and something I do, for, say a week, I do not know. An utterly inconceivable

explanation is that I am wanting to see some of you folk so I mention it only to

dismiss the supposition as absurd. Today, a small toto220

knelt as we passed to say

“Jambo”, Good Day to us. Treated with such deference how could one miss friends

and relatives.

In Uganda we have travelled slowly, which is good, but had been obliged to

dawdle a good deal just as when staying with friends at home. Owing to sickness and

one thing and another people with whom we might have gone out into the blue and

seen doing their various jobs, have been unable to take us or even go themselves. But

everyone has been extraordinarily kind, the merest acquaintance asking us to dinner

and getting people to meet us and then handing us on to others at the next place. The

sort of kindness runs with every place we go to. Some take it for granted that they

can’t entertain us at their homes but run us about in their cars; people you expect you

to look after you, can’t, when it comes to the point, but there is always some one to

prevent you’re feeling lonely or out of things. In a country like this, where whatever

you learn, you learn socially, and where there are few sights as such, this makes all

the difference to your pleasure or discontent in travelling.

At the Poultons in Kampala we had met a Mr and Mrs Hart who promptly

invited us to dine with them on our arrival in Jinja. We did, and had a bishop – called

Mr Bishop of Kampala because he isn’t, his sphere being the Eastern province in

which that town does not lie: and a Mr Groves of the Treasury, as our fellow guests.

The Bishop, whose legs were particularly fascinating, had the misfortune to break his

glass at the table. He said he now realized for the very first time the intrinsic truth of

the time honoured explanation “It just broke in me ’and Mum [?]” for that is precisely

what happened. Mr Groves was a less Gentlemanly type than one usually meets here

among officials, or perhaps I should say, less oxonian. However, he was most

enthusiastic to teach us all a new game of Donkey, most complicated – and kicked me

vigorously whenever he thought I was going to make a mistake. The first time, and I

assumed that he had gone mad, and should not be exasperated so I said nothing, but

he instantly cried out. Didn’t you feel the pressure of my foot? ‘I did’ said I. And we

saw you were kicking her, cried the others’. ‘Then why,’ demanded he ‘why didn’t

she put her ten on the Bishop’s nine. Thereafter, when he kicked I looked wildly at all

the other people’ cards, but in spite of my efforts and his, or because of them, Georgie

managed to get out one ahead of me, and I was donkey. The next day, I learnt from

Mrs Sewell who kept the Jinja hotel that this Mr Groves makes admirable pastry but is

not popular with men because he is always expecting you to admire his cooking. In

this country, more even than in Australia, he is a very special oddity.

The only drawback to the evening was that it practically involved us in going

to church to hear the Bishop preach. The church was held in the tukika or [………]

END OF LETTERS

220

Child

108

2.2 TRANSCRIPT OF THE DIARY

Covering travel in Uganda from Jinja at the northern end of Lake Victoria

(which is the start of the Nile river, and there called the ‘Victoria’ Nile), by train to

Namasagali (because of rapids on the Nile at that location), boarding a boat then

getting off at Masindi Port and going inland and up-hill in a van to Masindi. They

then proceeded down the escarpment to Butiaba on the shores of Lake Albert where

they joined another boat and sailed north, out of the Lake and down what at that point

is called the ‘Albert’ Nile, through swampy territory to Nimule just over the border in

the Sudan.

SS Speke, The Nile River near Namasagali, [Uganda] 4 Oct 1922

After a week at Jinja from Tuesday 25th

September to Wednesday morning 4th

October to be exact, we came on by train for Namasagali today (9.30am to nearly

2pm) and at once boarded this little boat which will take us down the Nile into its

enlargement called Lake Keoga221

and deposit us we hope tomorrow morning at

Masindi Port.

We joined the train this morning at the pier, not the railway station and felt, or

rather I should speak for myself and say I felt, rather depressed as Mrs Sewell at the

hotel had seemed preoccupied with Mrs Howes from Kampala and there was no one

to see us off even along with other departing travellers. However Mr Haddon

happened to be seeing people at the Clement Hill, and indicated that he would see us

later and finally Mr and Mrs Hart, Mr Haddon, and Captain Skinner all bade us

farewell at Jinja station. Mr Haddon introduced us to Mr and Mrs Gunther, two of the

party which we were so disappointed to hear would be going north with us. She looks

attractive, a dark vivid looking woman years younger than her rather bloated looking

husband, evidently used to money and travel all her life.

A Miss Marsh, who talks like mad, shared our compartment, and is now

sharing our cabin on the boat. While we get off at Masindi Port she goes round the

lake, a trip we were strongly advised not to take. There is nothing particular to record

of the railway journey or the scenery which has the usual parklike appearance of this

part of Uganda. The chief amusement was the bustle at the railway stations, which are

the best built we have seen since leaving Tanganyika territory. They are grey, solid at

one end, a roof support, and open otherwise giving protection to travellers but not

walling them in. It is still amusing to see tall dignified natives bringing their stick of

sugar cane to chew – to take the place of our box of chocolate.

It was also gratifying to see Kosia’s222

joy when he learnt we were to have an

askari. He arrived in time, very slim and svelte in khaki, fez, puttees, cumberbund I

think and with rifle and all. His water bottle swung at his side and he looks most

lordly. We have surely gone up in the eyes of Kosia and the cook.

221

Now Lake Kyoga 222

She initially referred to him as ‘Cosea’ but that now changes to ‘Kosia’

109

The Nile springs ready grown from the head of Victoria Nyanza – but for a

few rapids it would be navigable at once – so where we joined it at Namasagali it is

already a wide stream. The boat is small but clean and pleasant compared with the

Congo boats and the same may be said of the still unappetising food. We had

lukewarm beef instead of goat, clean dishes and spoons or knives for butter and jam.

There is very little room and I have a chair by the cabin door in such a position that

everyone wishing to pass has to squeeze along.

With the Gunthers are two men, an Englishman and a Scotchman, pleasant and

look less florid than Mr Gunther. I haven’t caught their names yet but I think that the

Scotchman is MacKenzie. They are all connected with Liepzig223

and have been

having a look at Kenya and Uganda it is said, to see if they should establish a business

there. The Askari, cook and personal boy are not allowed on the boat with us. They

are on a lighter224

which we push.

A man and his wife (Risdon or Ricdon), who are being transferred from Jinja

to Soroti, are on board and a funny little canon Blackledge, who is said to have said to

the Archbishop of Canterbury that the Almighty had denied him stature but had

bestowed on him the gift of utterance.

Just before dinner I discovered that Mr Ricdon is an ardent photographer. He

gave me some tips about developing which, as I don’t do it, I have forgotten, and said

that in Africa you should never give less than f8 and should expose never for less than

½ S225

. This is due to the yellow in the light and to our height above sea level.

But is it? We should have given the same at Zanzibar. When we did not, they were

underexposed.

5th

Oct.

During the night after a glorious moonlight there came on a truly terrific storm

drenching our heads even in our cabins. The poor men sleeping on deck were washed

out. Lightening, extraordinary with very little thunder. Lasted I am told, an hour and a

half. We were up in time to see sunrise but did not arrive at Masindi Port, as we were

told late last night to expect at 6.30am, nor yet after breakfast. We had lunch on board

and only then began to arrive. The port is just a shed or two.

A reddy brown road runs almost straight up the hill and down to Masindi

itself. We went in a motor van, Mr McKenzie, Mr Holt and the Canon in front with a

native driver, Georgie, Mr Gunther, Mrs Gunther and my-self on chairs on the rear.

Behind us all the luggage that was not in the hold, our cook and one or two of the

natives. Kosia and Mustapha the askari waited with the food and other luggage.

Before landing we had another storm of rain and are told we must expect plenty on

the Safari.

223

Apparently a German company which was exploring for business opportunities in Africa. 224

A low lying, flat bottomed, low sided boat which is towed by a bigger powered boat, usually used to

carry the over-flow of luggage and poorest passengers, also called a ‘slipper’. 225

S = seconds

110

From Masandi Port to Masindi is 29-30 miles. We did about twelve miles an

hour only; the road, tho good, is soft as in other parts of Uganda. About 4.45pm

(instead of 10.30am at latest) we reached Masindi, which is not merely parklike but

garden like, shrubs seeming to happen anywhere. The hotel looked quite attractive but

there were four rooms only for six people. It seemed to be assumed that two men

could not be asked to share a room – ie Mr Holt and Mr McKenzie. The Canon was

going elsewhere, like Mr Chapman of Dromana. Finally Mr and Mrs Gunther went off

to accept an invitation to the PCs226

which was nice of them as they wished to be all

together at the hotel. So we have each a single room white washed, cement floors, two

beds with straw mattresses and a clean minimum of everything. Like the Speke it is

not good, but better than the Congo. The proprietor is a Major Godson, born in

England I think, but brought up in Queensland near Bundaberg. He has been in Africa

since the Boer war and longs to be back in Australia where he can have a horse (very

few horses can live in Africa227

).

His assistant is a Mr Dickenson; they rather startled Mr Holt and I think Mr

MacKenzie who is a New Zealander originally, by offering them drinks with them-

selves and by sitting down to dinner - a very bad dinner, with us. Major Godson is a

typical Australian and rather one of the many types of Australian country sic men.

Very gentle in manner with a quiet voice and kindliness written all over him. But the

group of us seemed not to blend well and we have all gone to bed early. The Liebzig

people are very keen on Rhodesia joining the Union and laugh at the Anti-Dutch

feelings of some of our friends in the South. The need of Rhodesia for a Port for her

cattle is their chief consideration. They have large interests in Argentina, Rhodesia

and […]West and Mr Holt has been in Meru228

as a railway director and has a railway

pass all over Africa.

6 Oct 1922

Slept like a log but still feeling depressed as food at this “Interlake” hotel

(nearly midway between Lake Victoria and Lake Albert) is almost as bad as on the

Congo. They have as a rule three courses of meat, the first two messy and the last

which we have not hitherto known was coming, a roast presumably, lukewarm.

Fortunately for me there is fruit, and the bread is passable. Masindi is a pretty place,

the green remarkably vivid. The name of the hotel is done in red plants in front of it

and there is an arch of blue convolvulus. It rains here daily. Today we bade Kosia do

our washing after first inquiring from the hotel people if they objected to lending

necessaries. They replied certainly not, but Kosia objected to carry the water he

required and naturally it was not the job of the hotel boys to do it. He may be right; if

he were a houseboy he would not be expected to carry any, but with us he has far less

to do than with a man; we do all our own packing and the hotel people, Mr Dickenson

to be exact, says his refusal is absurd. He has done it but says he had better go back to

Kampala. Erissa the cook and Mustapha the askari came to us and, as far as our very

inefficient medium of discourse permits, seems to be offering to divide a personal

boys work between them – Query who will do washing on safari and pack up our beds

226

Provincial Commissioner 227

Because of Tsetse fly 228

Not sure this is the correct name - Meru is near Mt Kenya. Hamilton described it on her 1922 visit

as “…a tiny place with a K.A.R. station of ten whites, a hospital the size of a hen house, and a few

Indian duka’s. pp. 68-9, with no mention of a train station.

111

which we could do ourselves but must not unless in an emergency? If we can get that

cut and dried it would be a saving of bother. Here on the spot, had we but known,

safari boys could be got to be cook and personal boy in one for thirty Rupees all told.

One would have to write about one month ahead though.

Later. Mr Dickenson has just interviewed the cook and Mustapha for us to

make sure when they offer to do for us that they had thought of the washing etc. The

four of us stood by while he talked. Who will be Dobie (washerman) for these ladies

when they send back Kosia? I will, said Mustapha. Who will make their beds? I will.

Who will bring them the water for their baths? I will – Mustapha in short was to do

everything. The cook remains the cook. Then Mustapha standing at attention, his eyes

fixed on Mr Dickenson and looking very like a violent but upright schoolboy, began a

long recitation that sounded like a confession of faith. Bwana Scheenya (Mr Skinner)

had told him to look after these ladies, to see that all went well with them and that

everything was right. He had told Bwana Scheenya he would do this, and he would!!!!

It seems that he has been a personal boy; but I should live to have my cerise

scallops229

washed by an askari surprises me. Pray heaven he doesn’t think it part of

his duties to put us to bed and ram us in with his rifle end.

Mrs Watson, the Provincial Commissioner’s wife, has sent us an invitation to

dinner on Sunday.

Saturday 7th

Oct.

We are still putting in time here. The great joy is a one-eyed dog who attaches

himself to me for walks. If I do not take him far enough he tries to seize my sleeve

when I turn in order to pull me back. G and I went to the mission (Mr and Mrs

Bowers) this morning to see about our chairs. Mr Nelson thought they would be a few

rupees. They were two guineas each. The frames to which they are to be tied are

flimsy as there are no bamboos about here, but the chairs called Satan or “rucke”

chairs are neat and serviceable, take up little room and are comfortable both for meals

and resting and I had visions of paying for mine myself in order to bring it home.

Georgie desires to present me with it but I decline the latter and am doubtful whether

it is worth my while to spend so much on it. I think she could sell them at Rejaf.

I forgot to mention that yesterday a native, looking roguish under a dilapidated

hat (when you did not see his face) and fearsome with the skins of wild things slung

round him, came and gave us a full performance, dancing chanting – displaying two

dolls and other puppets. There were two redeeming features to the show. He

occasionally happened onto his head and stayed there an amazing length of time

patting the ground with the palms of his hands and waggling his legs more or less

skilfully. Also with various horns, he imitated the cries or grunts of wild animals, the

lion roar and other […] pantings (for that is what it is like) being especially good.

To return to today. We were wanted back for the at-home day this afternoon

but I went to the Duka instead to buy a sack for our onions, blanco for my very dirty

helmet, wineglasses for the safari, a tin of cigarettes and some chocolates – these last

and the blanco to be my private property. Kosia, tho too slow to go into the garden

229

Cerise scallops - cherry coloured scalloped edged lace, band or collar, probably of a blouse or dress

112

and catch worms, is behaving sweetly. Nethertheless, he is to return to Kampala and

we are to trust ourselves to the askari and the cook. Today we have to search for a

bottle strong enough for Erissa to make his yeast in. I gave him all the hops and dealt

out a little flour, sugar and salt for the purpose with, I trust, a great appearance of

yeast-experience. I had acquired the recipe on board the Speke from Mrs Ricdon. We

cut the gammon ham in two to fry part and boil the rest and I instructed Erissa to

make a paste to put over the cut part. He insisted on having some sugar for the

purpose which sounds quite correct but methinks it found its way into some

concoction they were drinking with the other boys.

All his chits are good so I am looking forward to some decent food on the

safari. Here I subsist on soup, toast and fruit. Mr Dickenson is down with a bad attack

of malaria for which he blames sleeping with only one blanket when he had made up

beds for seven people, only four of whom arrived – our party and the Gunthers. I have

tried to learn a few phrases of Swahili now that Kosia, who spoke a fair amount of

English, is going. The phrases selected are suggestive – Be silent (natives chatter like

a lot of bees) Tell the cook to bring tea – did the water boil. I like food underdone (for

Georgie) I like food much cooked (for me). We go early tomorrow morning. Make

this water cooler (they habitually give me baths that nearly boil me alive – I am left

without any extra cold with which to dilute it. I am contemplating church again

tomorrow in order to hear him to whom the Lord denied statue but gave the gift of

utterance.

Sunday 8th

Oct 1922

Was reproved by Mr MacKenzie for having had a spider killed by Kosia. Had

a talk with Mr Holt about South America. He says there is less corruption in the

Argentine than in any of the South American states he knows. But in the others

apparently charming men who talk most/poetically of their fatherland and its honour

are the most unmitigated scoundrels. Each of them can be brought and in the interests

of his shareholders Mr Holt has, on occasion, bought them. He also says that the

Americans of USA are detested as business men, especially in the Argentine. The

head of a huge American combine once approached Mr Holt on the subject saying

“You know Holt, we’ve all the money in the world but we failed in South America

because we have not the right sort of men. Now you Britishers have no money now

but you have the men. How about us finding the money and you supplying the men?”

To which crude proposal Mr Holt replied. “You are wrong in assuming we have no

money. We have. But if you were correct and we had none, you are asking us to give

away our one asset. Nothing doing.”

At present we are waiting for afternoon tea, of which the feature is to be a cake

made, it seems but I am not sure, by Major Godson’s own fair and virtually Australian

hands. It is 4.35pm government time and Mr H is getting anxious. He is to be over at

the mission at quarter to five, a twenty minute walk. But as Church goes in by Sun

time, half an hour later than the other, there is still a chance, if the Major hurries, that

our South American magnate may have his cake and eat it.

Georgie is not well enough to go across – that is, her legs feel queer. She is

disappointed but I suffer in silence with a smiling eye. I would have gone with her in

order to judge of the Canon’s eloquence. Hope the cake is good for at present I starve

113

in the midst of plenty. For lunch we had soup (???), stewed meat, pie, cold meat, hot

roast (all in order of their appearance) and a jam tart and cream. The last, the only

edible thing tho. Georgie manages to consume more than I do. If the cake fails, there

is still dinner at the PCs (Mr Watsons).

We are feeling rather worried whether we have enough porters or not. We set

out for Butiaba tomorrow and the boat we get there, should bring us to Nimule

between 8am and 12pm on Wednesday morning.

Later we went up to the Provincial Commissioner’s for dinner – very nice

people. Met a Captain Something whom we had seen around and found wanting,

waiting at the Treasury. He hates Uganda, wants to get back to England and games.

Mrs Watson like an older Mona Grant; Mr Watson like Mr de Bouw of the Congo.

Can hardly imagine a difference of race. He and she have been home by the Soudan

route and tho they went at a worse time than we are doing, they enjoyed it immensely.

We learnt too from Mrs Gunther who is staying here, that fifty porters are waiting for

us.

The Gunther party are in the care of the Colonial office and the foreign office

no less. They wired for porters a fortnight ago thro the Mamur and learnt only a few

days ago that the wire was never sent and that since the 26th

, telegraphic

communication has been broken by flooded rivers (luckily rivers flowing into Lake

Albert and not on our route). As they are so important however, the P.C. who has

special instructions regarding them, sent a runner through to the Mamur who is to do

what he can and who mentioned the fifty porters for us. Our minds are relieved - also

our priority in wiring may make things easy for us, there is no doubt we were first,

earlier even than their first wiring. Georgie was tired and left early to my disgust, for I

was interested in the folk there. The others stayed however, to play bridge.

Illus. 23. Government motor van, Uganda 1911, possibly like the one used230

230

From Gann and Duignan, p.195

114

Monday 9th

October

All our goods have gone to the transport office. Erissa and Mustapha (and rifle

and all) have gone with them. Another van calls for the passengers and their chairs

and any small trifles after lunch. Have sat and talked of South America with Mr Holt.

He was the Commercial member of a mission sent by the British Government in 1918

under Sir Maurice de Bunseu231

. Mr Holt hated it – they were treated like royalty but

he thought de B too weak and the mission useless. From Australia to Valpariso and

hence to Antofagasta, then by rail up a marvellous line sometimes 16,000 feet above

sea level to La Paz and down to Cusco and then to Moleane [?] and by sea to Lima

and so home, would make a good trip. Three and a half to four months from Australia

to Australia? That is all I’ll ever have time or money for, if that, but the Argentine

sounds interesting too, tho to me less so. British capital has made great railways and

for the rest, the land is extraordinarily fertile.

It is queer to have happened here in the middle of Africa on to so typical an

Australian as the Major. He is mending chairs, making cakes, seeing about rope or its

substitute for everyone. The place, African as it is in its setting, its servants and its

courses at meals has, thru him a distinctly Australian flavour. Oddly, his assistant Mr

Dickenson, who is English, has an Australian name, Hobart, one of his ancestors

having given him the name from whom Hobart was named.

We left Masindi in the motor van about 1pm. Erissa the cook and some of the

other boys were in the back, Mrs Gunther, Mr MacKenzie and Mr Holt sat on a

wicker settee. Mr Gunther, Georgie and I on chairs facing them. Mr Stevens of the

transport, another man and a native driver in front. The road lay through pretty

country but we could not see it well – then it came on to pour. Mr G’s seat collected a

pool and his helmet was drenched from a leak on the roof. Georgie was separated

from her coat so my cape had to be stretched to festoon us both. We were driving

along about 3500 feet above sea level till just within sight of Lake Albert.

We descended pretty well 1200 feet by an interesting, precipitous road

winding past rocks. About a mile from the Lake the van stopped and we were

supposed to take to trolleys. Georgie was the only one who did so however, for part of

the way. About five or a little later we reached the boat, SS Samuel Baker, a paddle

steamer much more comfortable looking than any lake boat we have had except for

the Clement Hill. But the captain had gone out to dinner or was giving a party, I don’t

know which. There are but four Europeans at Butiaba and I didn’t notice their houses.

Anyhow, there was no one to report to, and but for the vigorous proceduring of Mr

Holt who instantly penetrated to the kitchen, we should have had no tea. It was

extremely welcome as we had had nothing since 12.15. Then dinner was served on

deck, the best we have had, save at Mrs Watsons’, since leaving Jinja. There were two

legs of mutton, each about the size of my two fists and a small bit of the […].

Present 1. Mr Morris a young missionary 2. Mr Hurlburt an old one, an

American – 3, 4, 5, 6, the Gunther party, 7, 8 Georgie and myself. Then we arranged

for bed. The cabins crawl it is said, with cockroaches – tho I saw only one, a most

stilted looking one, with long, stiff legs. So we slept on deck, men on the right and

231

Sir Maurice de Bunseau (1852-1932) , ambassador, commissioner and privy counsellor

115

women on the left. We all rigged up nets with the help of each other and (mainly) of

the boys. And heavens, how it rained and lightened [sic].

Tuesday 10th

October continued.

Early this morning – perhaps 4am, all was movement on the deck [with]

people dragging chairs, beds etc into shelter, dragging down mosquito nets. Then we

slept again till about 6am when it was still pouring. Mr Gunther sat up admidst his

very swagger mosquito nets (not pulled down) like a baby in its cot. The whole place,

as Mrs Gunther said, looked like a nursery. At 6.30am Erissa, who calls us madame,

not memsahib, prodded me into action with a cup of tea and then went to Georgie’s

bed, gazed at it disconcertedly, and patted it all over to make sure she was not there.

She had retreated to her cabin.

The boat, due to start about 4am, did not till about 7am. This is disturbing as

the Gunther party, since we wish to go ahead, want us to leave the very afternoon of

our arrival at Nimule, and if we arrive late, it will be the dickens to settle in late and

leave early again next morning.

More immediately trying was the wait for breakfast. The little bit of lake we

had to cross before getting into the Nile was pretty rough and the vibration of this boat

is remarkably great. Consequently I felt I needed packing, so to speak, or else I should

feel the wobbling too much. But it was not till 10 to 9 that we got breakfast from a

bewildered and badgered boy. Poor chap, their boat goes by Sun time, we by

Government time and here the difference is an hour.

We called at Mahagi – a mere handful of native huts with steep hills behind

and along the water’s edge, a narrow and rather alluring path. This village is in the

Congo again. Now we are near the birth of the Nile from Lake Albert. The name of

the village is Panzamur in Lado Enclave232

which is under, but not properly part of,

Uganda – was once administered by Belgium. Left at 2.25pm. Are in the Enclave up

to Rejaf. The missionaries will leave us at Pakwash and safari on a motor bicycle and

sidecar to Arua in the Belgian Congo.

Mr Watson, the PC, Mrs Gunther, Mr McKenzie and Mr Holt (whom they call

Don Folletto, his name being Follet Holt) are playing bridge. They won’t have a four

hander again for some time probably as Mr Gunther does not play. I should have liked

a talk with Mr Watson. He is one of the four PCs of Uganda – of the Northern

province, of which Bunjors, including Masindi, is a district. See Uganda Handbook

9 -14 (NB. if anybody receives this as a letter she can’t - she won’t have the Uganda

Hand Book and I can’t because I have sent mine to Cairo, and Georgie’s is locked

away).

I have been amused since we came on board with the excellence of Erissa the

cook and Mustapha the askari. They are bosom pals with the boys of the other party,

who set them an admirable example of what to do for an employer. At 6.30am they

brought us tea – they got out all our bedding to dry, they put up our beds etc.

232

Region north of Lake Albert which was administered by the Congo Free State from 1894-1909 and

then incorporated into the Anglo-Egyptian-Sudan.

116

When I came out of our unspeakably stuffy cabin this morning where I had dressed as

hurriedly as I could, Erissa met me gestulating and most anxious. Where was the stuff

for my boots “They are very dirty”. Finally I compromised, letting Mustapha polish

them while the roof dripped on my crown. Later when the slight rolling had ceased I

ventured downstairs again. I found him (Mustapha) sitting on the lower deck washing

clothes on the floor with such a quantity of suds as I have never seen before. There

was quite six inches deep of them. He rinsed I suppose in the lake as we passed. We

are now well into the Nile233

. The shore on each side is flat and green and it has begun

to rain – 3.25pm rain ceased as suddenly as it began.

233

Actually the ‘Albert’ Nile

117

Map 8: Detail of ‘Albert’ Nile-Nimule-Rejaf safari route

118

They now leave Lake Albert and go (north) down the ‘Albert’ Nile to Nimule

from where the eight day safari to Rejaf begins. A safari is necessary at this point

because of the many rapids on the nearby Nile, just like on the ‘Victoria’ Nile, which

make both sections of the river impassable by boat. The Nimule route was a well-

travelled route, complete with government rest houses spaced out at regular intervals.

By 1925, the availability of regular motorized transport transformed the mode of

travel.

Tuesday 10th

October cont. We are now going through sudd234

– Nile lilies ie little

green tufted plants like long lettuces,235

and papyrus, all floating. We just push

through it. We have just learned from the captain that six inches rise was sufficient to

save us the rowing boats.

Wednesday 11th

Oct.

Slept like log on deck. All make preparations around rain but none disturbed

us. Hot and sultry but personally I feel that a North wind day such as we have in

Melbourne, and have never had in Africa, would be worse to travel in (written on the

Samuel Baker).

Arrived Nimule 10.30am, ahead of time in spite of starting late. There will

follow dates and hours only, as I have already discovered, Safari does not lend itself

to writing letters or diary. 236

Acting Mamur M. Caran a Syrian. Left Nimule 2pm, the porters half hour

earlier. The Mamur very helpful. Crossed Assia river 6.40-8pm, already dark at 6pm.

Arrived Aju 10pm. Much of trip in dark.

Illus. 24. The type of carrying arrangement used (although without child!) while on safari237

234

In fact this was only Sudd-like territory, a pre-cursor of the area further north called the Sudd (Bahr

al Jabal) is a vast (130,000 kms²) swamp land filled with solid blocks of floating vegetation which

blocked explorers moving southward for many decades. 235

Water hyacinth 236

Because of the lack of mention in existing material on any other safari it is suspected that they

travelled on one when they visited Great Zimbabwe, and perhaps the Morgenster Mission.

119

Thursday 12 Oct.

Left Aju about 8am, the porters and Erissa ahead. Breakfast at Itu 10.30am.

Reached Lado Kirrippi 12.30pm. Scenery from our height238

not dull, distant

mountains. Met Acting DC. N. Baddoura, a Syrian, heard re Greece. Gave him

vermouth, smoked Egyptian cigarettes of his.

Friday 13th

Oct.

Left Kirrippi early, porters and Erissa at 4.20am, we at 5.54am. All day

marching towards great Mt [… …] reminds me of [Cathe…]: Wani Moku (or Moku

only when speaking just of rest house). 10.30am for breakfast. Left 12.15pm. Georgie

very sick due apparently to a slice of pawpaw - arrived Gumbiri 3.45pm.

Sat 14th

Oct.

Left Gumbiri, porters at 6.30am. We arrived breakfastless at 11.30am. Tombé

Mousa Country still quite interesting – long range on left. Nice dry smell of the grass

especially at Gadren Morbe and Fitu Legu, tho bad and mosquitos very bad at Feta

Legu – smell of curry often came from the grass - I noticed it several times.239

Great excitement Erissa told of TM [… …] further on and a runner from Nimule

[……. ….] bringing a letter from Mr Rogers whom we had expected to see on the

boat. The boat had failed to see the signals of his askari and yet we had told the

captain that we expected Mr R to come on board. Unluckily G did not look at the date

of the Mamur’s covering letter, so we don’t know how long it took the gentleman

(clad in white? shirt and white shorts and a brown straw hat like a woman’s but

untrimmed) to come.

The fee for the special messenger was 3/- but perhaps he was cheaper because

he was going onto Rejaf. We gave him a note to give the Mamur at Nimule on the

return journey. I gave him a couple of piastas (5 to the 1/-) for food to get.

Mamur at Rejaf, I V Sabra240

Sunday 15th

Tombé Moussa to Gadren Morbe or Ku...lu []) Left TM 6.15am arrived GM

eight miles and a bit at 9.20am. Amused porters with camera. Two large rest houses,

crowds of natives - the women with steel apron/ and beads – two fowls - sheep that

coughed – 2/- six eggs 1 piasta or 2 ½ everywhere. Erissa made bread, bakes all early

for food. Mustapha always with us.

Illus.25. Sketch of skirt (JW).

237

Pettifer and Bradley, p 83 238

Meaning from being carried 239

Written on torn white interleaf between p. 15 and 16 of original 240

A scribble at top of page

120

Jottings – dress of our natives’ loin cloth - or shorts – or shirt or blanket

looped up over shoulder – nyempasa with straw hat and all no garments ie shirt and

trousers, indescribably dirty.

Monday 16th

October

Gadren Morbe seems to have more character than the other places, in the

distance a range of hills, to the South and another far East with a deep sea blue

Mountain behind shaped like a camel. Arriving early, too, we were there longer and

then experiences with the girls, the gabbling porters, the sheep and the fowls perhaps

make it seem more definite. Then this morning there was a glorious sunrise in two

stages – a long low bank of black cloud that after emerged into mountains and above

dull dark pastel pink and purplish grey with flecks of eau de nil – and small grey

cloud floating low on the mountains looked like a lake. The porters left at 4.40am, we

at 5.45am. We came along in good time. From Gumbari our porters have been a new

tribe, Baria. They are quicker than the others but Mustapha thinks they make too

much fuss.

One of them suddenly let out an impatient frenzied yell. I was afraid that he

would fling down his end and bolt. They seem to know when an hour is up and want a

rest but when at 10am they stopped for the 3rd

time, Mustapha raised Cain, probably

because they were near the next camp. It was soon after then that my carriers whined

so indignantly – two men coming from the camp relieved him and his mate and in ¼

of an hour ie at 10.15am we were at Fitia Legu. En route, a Soudanese askari and

some men accosted us with letters. Neither turned out to be for us but as both were

open I glanced at them. One was a memo to a Mamur or someone to get 105 men, the

other a reply to the request and sent to Rejaf for seventy-five porters for the Gunther

party at Gumbari. The writer had received the request on Saturday only and was

sending an askari to help get men, but protested that in future, the fourteen day’ s

notice must be complied with. G says Mrs Gunther’s story of the telegram not sent is

not quite correct, the true version being that the clerk failed in not letting Mr Watson

know that his telegram on their behalf, could not be sent. He would then have sent a

runner earlier. Whatever the slight difference in cause may be, the party is not to

blame and we are feeling very anxious lest the delay in getting men make them late

for the boat. However, the police station at Gumbari (native only) may be able to help

them.

When we arrived Erissa was in his kanga241

- the first appearance of which

surprised us all – awaited us and told that he could not have the table laid, we having

the table. He soon got us a most satisfactory breakfast of fried Cross and Blackwell’s

Bologna sausages and fried potatoes. Three cups of tea in addition, put us at peace

with the world, especially as he announced that water was on for baths. As no cold

can be added because of guinea worm, we have to wait till it cools and while Georgie

gasps at the heat of what I wallow in, I gasp at what she wallows in, and have to wait

a long time before bathing. She is now bathing. 1.15. Mustapha has distributed the

thirty-five cigarettes to the porters and taken the ten [betio?] for Erissa and himself –

241

Kanga (or khanga) is a length of cloth, worn wrapped around the waist by east Africans (as per

laplap)

121

and Erissa has elected unasked to make a cake. What tosh Mr Gosling talked about

the appalling difficulties and dangers of this trip!

The surroundings of Fitia Legu or Ledju are pretty – blue hills to the South. To

the North East a near hill of rocks and trees reminding me of Macedon. A tall

dignified old gentleman in long kanga and red fez was introduced by M as requiring

medicine for his chest. We gave him lozenges and salts. First between us, we showed

Mustapha (as the situation was beyond our combined Swahili and English) that he

took one lozenge and sucked it – then and not until then - another one and so on. The

salts – kesho, mafewa– ie tomorrow, early. Then Mustapha who is fluent in speech

and gesture, translated. He gulped rapidly, then glared at the chief who with palm

outward, protested against such behaviour; this was evidently the order and promise to

suck slowly. All was incredibly serious and the chief most dignified. Then we took his

photograph. We each tried to take the interior of this rest house with Erissa in

Georgie’s photograph in attendance on me and both Erissa and Mohammed in mine

attending on Georgie. There is a big tree outside under which the porters are gathered.

It is like the noise of innumerable bees. Little huts like this are apparently sleeping

places – like our rest houses on a smaller scale and round, instead of oblong.

Illus. 26. Sketch of hut (JW)

Neither have doors, ours have a hole in each bedroom to serve as a window.

Now that I am as far as possible from Georgie whose bed creaks unmercifully, I am

able to sleep pretty soundly from 8 or 9pm till 3.30 or 4am – and as I am still keeping

up the walking vigorously for an hour at the beginning of each journey I am really fit

today. Went for a little scramble at 4.30pm and would have done more had I a mate

for felt sure that there were no lions or leopards or snakes hereabouts.

Our routine now is to put everything not wanted in the morning into the dining

room, keeping beside us only something in which to put our nightdress and sponge

bags and slippers. Then at dinner a rescue, say a couple of legs of chicken, a slice

each of bread and butter and of bread butter and jam, a little sugar, some milk

(“Ideal”, in tiny tins) and wrap it up – all this, with a thermos of tea or coffee for our

terribly early morning snack, eaten in our carrying chairs and without table. For cups

on these ceremonial occasions we have the aluminium tops of two thermoses, one of

which has been broken and thrown away. Then when the alarm goes, Erissa and

Mustapha see that everything, save what is with us in our bedrooms, is taken. We

dress leisurely – but not carefully – and come out to our chairs. Erissa and the porters

and those carrying food and the other articles depart as quickly as may be – we eat our

122

snack while Mustapha packs the beds and collects odds and ends – then I start

walking. My carriers follow with my chair, Georgie next, probably the other porters.

Mustapha always brings up the rear unless when the porters are resting, Georgie and I

walk on, then he follows us, at first a rather disconcerting arrangement, like having a

footman in attendance. If I march away alone on these occasions I don’t know what

would happen with these Bari porters. With the others, one of the Nubians always

kept behind me.

Both Madi and Baria address us as Momina or Mamina as they do to the

married ladies of their own colour. One always knows in their case whether the title is

justified, for they wear a fail [?] - fringed leather, or hair, or mere branchlets of trees

for each. If one goes for an evening stroll it is rather disconcerting to find one of these

silent footed natives close beside one. “Momina” he says and is very fluent till he

finds I know not his language (Georgie does not go for evening strolls so she does not

share these experiences). Then finding me ignorant he becomes terse tho still

persuasive. “Momina,” he says, Sigare, and if it is not too dark for gesture to be seen,

he puts two fingers to his lips, draws them away, languorously and slowly puffs away

the imaginary smoke – I have one reply which is always quite efficacious for they are

gentle folk. I say the name of the next camp we shall be at, if then the shadowy form

should happen to be one of our porters, it will mean to him, not now, but you’ll get

one at so and so, for we deal out one each day. If he isn’t a porter the answer can be

taken merely as another incomprehensibility of the white folk.

The only other thing to record of the trip generally at present is the good dry

smell of the yellowing elephant grass. Everything has been beautifully green up until

about Gadren Morbe, or at least it was when I noticed it. Like Melbourne to Sydney

grass (tho so much taller), I smelt that homely smell of hay.

Tuesday 17 Oct. Fitia Legu to Nionke [Nymki?]

Last night at Fetia Legu, we absolutely sweltered, it was so moistly and

breathlessly hot until, after we were in bed, Georgie in her small corner, I in mine, a

terrific thunderstorm burst upon us. When the rain began I was full of apprehension

lest the roof should leak, but the lightening and thunder were so startling, even

terrible, and one knows of such dreadful results in Africa, a rest house burnt, a child

killed in its mother’s arms, to say nothing of men we have met hurled across the room

from the telephone, that soon I was thankful for the descending sheets of water that

soaked our roof. I lay between the doorway and the round window hole of my room

and felt as if the lightening were invading me through both of them. Suddenly a long

insidious flash would come, it seemed, along the ground towards the door. The rain

increased as if showering more and more protection on us and then the thunder

crackled, deafened, roared as if a long thunderbolt was travelling Northward over us.

Two claps were so violent and so long that one could hardly bear it. Then after more

lightening, the thunder began, it seemed to cannon around the walls of a narrow dome

immediately overhead as if something enormous, panic stricken and resounding, were

daring the rain to escape; neither Georgie nor I at different ends of the house, nor

Erissa and Mustapha sleeping in the dining room guarding our things, made any

comment but Georgie and I were both rather staggered. But worse was to follow to

me, and nothing dignified or uplifting, just terrifying. I began to be bitten and in

123

Africa a rest house may have in it the [fawnsuede?] tick242

that gives one relapsing

fever. I found nothing, and the cause of the trouble may have been a simple mosquito,

a benevolent fellow whether malarial or not compared with the other horrible thing, or

it may have been sandflies or ants. However, bitten I was, well and truly, fell like a

heroine of fiction into a late and troubled sleep, and woke with the alarm, hot

inflamed and indignant.

The porters left at 4.40am, we at 5.50. I walked for miles, ie to Laro, a rest

camp at what seemed an extremely violent pace. It turned out to be only about three

and a half miles an hour. After a rest, a drink of water from the water bag and a bit of

chocolate, I went on for another half hour and at 8am climbed into my palanquin.

Georgie was in great excitement when she caught up with me at Laro. She diagnosed

some spoor243

I too had noted, as lion. It was then perhaps fortunate for me last night

that I did not wander further. I don’t think my nerves would be equal to the imitation

of Paul Kruger’s exploit. 244

The road was not as thorny as we had been led to fear, but it was rocky and there

was a little river or creek, the Chafaia, that was to be crossed. We arrived at Ngonheat

10.45am and found Erissa much excited.

1.There was a party of natives going Nimule-wards in possession, as I suspect natives

should never be, and they had, or the caretaker had, we did not gather which, had tried

to stop him settling [?] and insisted he should go on.

2.Two porters kept stopping on the road and had thrown down their boxes when he

made them go on. Mustapha soon appeared looking most serious and the two

offenders were presented to us while Erissa showed where he, most virtuously, as he

seemed to think, had kicked Porter A to encourage him. Porter A had come bustling

towards the hut but started limping when thought he could be seen, but beyond this

attempt to appeal for some pity he said nothing - and we told Mustapha to tell them

that if it occurred again tomorrow they would go to the Mamur at Nimule – Gel

kiboko245

. He complied with unction although he is gentler with his fellows than any

other native I have seen – I doubt if he put in the conditional clause.

We had the sausages and potato for breakfast or lunch – tea – bottles as yesterday.

A girl brought water, young and boyish looking but with a [fail?] Surely she has no

child. Erissa has got dinner early – 5.40pm. We have remonstrated with him and will

now sup on dinner tinned tomato soup, chicken, onion, potato and banana fritters.

Hope the porters don’t desert. They were encamped about an empty rest house

opposite ours. We are sure it’s meant for Europeans only, we made Mustapha order

them away. It was not a popular move at all.

18 Oct. Wednesday

What a night! The expected storm did not arrive and we lay and sweltered. We

were in bed very early and at ten I awoke to hear Erissa and Mustapha who, natives or

242

Probably African Tick Bite Fever, which causes acute febrile illness. 243

Any sign, tracks, trace and/or droppings of an animal (Jessie is showing how localized she is!) 244

Referring to the story told to her in Cape Town. 245

Gel kiboko - ??

124

not, sleep in the same rest house as we do, muttering mournfully. The porters were

talking nineteen to the dozen, I had visions that the Gunther party had arrived by a

forced march or that the porters were getting ready to depart. Then Mustapha came

and slept on the veranda at my - the less protected - door. And I returned to attend to

my night en casserole where, like rhubarb and sugar, I supplied my own moisture to

stew in.

The alarm was timed for five but soon after four all was activity. Erissa and

Mustapha, like us had suffered from heat and dudus (insects) and were eager to shake

the dust of Nyamki off their feet. Georgie asked me had I heard the lion roar and I was

infuriated that I hadn’t; then she went on to say that it was because of the roar that

Mustapha had come to sleep at my - the less protected, door. As a matter of fact he

was in search of air, but she is busy idealizing the splendid chap into a Christian

gentleman. He’s a Mahomedan, by the way.

We left at twenty to six by my watch, which was an hour slow later on, but

seems by Georgie’s time to have been approximately right then. I walked for an hour

and forty minutes, then waited for the water carrier (a native who bore the big tin

bottle in its wet flannel covering and also G’s voile bag with a thermos, the top of

which serves us as a tumbler) – this was near the pretty little native village of Kirbas.

These villages are beginning to improve. Seem to have more and better cultivation

about them. Their little granaries are set up high, like beehives. Photographs must

remain undeveloped so long on this trip and we go, think yet, 1,089 miles along the

river from here before we reach even Khartoum, that I am doubtful whether these

mementos will be worth looking at. However, I took several just here, my supply of

film, thanks to my frenzied purchase from Robert Stobo in Tanga246

and at two shops

in Nairobi, being still un-necessarily large. Just beyond the village was a queer

conical hill which turns out, after our considerable windings, to be just near our Rest

House here across the Nile at Rejaf.

After leaving Kirbas where G caught up with us, we crossed the Ket river,

very shallow but wide, say about 100 yards. How the men shuffled up the right bank I

don’t know. It was about perpendicular but they kept our awkward selves and clumsy

carriages quite steady. While they rested from this effort we met a European (?), the

first since Kirippi (last Friday). He was riding a bicycle, told us the Mamur expected

us. Of himself he said he collected some birds – evidently by his speech is a foreigner,

but to me he looked European. After travelling thru very high grass which was

troublesome to the porters, realizing at the sight of a telegraph that we were once

more in touch with the world, seeing bananas again, tho on the heads of two boys, not

on trees. We came at last to our now familiar friend, the Nile, parallel with which we

have been travelling these eight days but alas, not within sight of the rapids that make

travel on it impossible. After a long wait, as the ferry had just gone to the other side

with our advance guard, we were polled across. Rejaf looked pretty. The lawn slopes

up from the river – further along the river and at right angles to it are government

buildings – mud and thatch, but imposing with white unformed Sudanese police.

246

This is the only reference to their stop-over in Tanga, which is a major port south of Mombasa and

on the main shipping route from Zanzibar. He presumably was a relative, Stobo being a family name

125

There we met the Mamur, another Syrian gentleman, who told us he didn’t

know where he was to put the Gunther party as the man we had met, who is an

Egyptian Bey had one, and we are to have the other. Then Mustapha reported, looking

very imposing, if a little like a pouter pigeon, dear fellow, as he stood at the salute.

And so this adventure is over without any of the mishaps predicted having come true.

We had only one shower on march, our porters were obedient, Mustapha, bless his

heart, and Erissa, had done their best for us. In spite of Georgie’s bilious hour at Molo

no one has been really ill, so it is a happy ending to the story. From Mamur to Mamur

or “How we brought the good Georgie from Nimule to Rejaf”.

126

127

Map 9. Sudan and Egypt route

128

Now they are at Rejaf on the west bank of the Nile in the Sudan, awaiting the

‘Omdurman’ to go downstream the Nile proper to Khartoum.

[Rejaf]

The rest houses are further up the slope, more ostentatious than the others,

raised and one and a half feet above the earth veranda and all, but very dilapidated

inside. Luckily the floors are cemented, and luckily the walls come up nearer to the

roof than hitherto. There is a space all around but not much and at night this will be

very airless. We have however, a huge stone jar on the veranda for water. Convicts

escorted by askari keep it filled. They have a big spring of […] in the […] , I don’t

know. No chickens being bought, we dined on tinned stuff chiefly – Julien soup,

sheep’s tongues, potato salad with dressing, neither of these out of tins, peaches and

custard (home made) and tea. In the kitchens there are no ovens – and no chimneys.

On separate little fires the native cook boils water for baths, cooks the meat, soup,

vegetables and possible pudding and so far I have tasted nothing badly smokey and

only once or twice water slightly so. The custard was excellent. Here we have nothing

more than in the other rest houses ie nothing at all – to put things on. Dressing and

bathing is not easy. To that extent we have been roughing it and one gets very dirty

too during the day – but there has been no pigging it, as on the Louis Cousin on the

Congo.

Erissa felt ill and was terribly sorry for himself. We dosed him with quinine

and asperia and the eternal salts, and said we would eat biscuits to save him making

bread – but he sadly insisted on getting out his yeast bottle in preparation for the

morrow, there being enough stale for us to go on with. A sudden noise affrightens our

rustic souls – it was a motor van. Truly we are once more in civilization.

Thursday 19 Oct.

Which of the medicines has recovered him, or whether Georgie’s loan of a

mosquito net to go over his head consoled him more, I don’t know but Erissa was up

and doing about 5.20am, brought us tea, mine very milky, as he had not often had the

task of pouring it out for me and was seeing about food at the market before our ten to

eight breakfast. His English is improving rapidly but I still find it hard when this quite

sophisticated looking individual comes to ask for my soos or soosies or talks of

sheeties and blanketties. (Our Swahili word for a battle ship is manowari and any

thing known only by its foreign name is apt to be provided with an e sound at the

end). Anyhow, we are now provided with an incredibly small leg of mutton, more like

a shank of one of our sheep for tonight, and a large fowl (price 1/5 as against the 2 ½

for the big ones between here and Nimule) for tomorrow.

After breakfast Georgie and I went shopping. Mrs Morris’s parasol had

suddenly broken on me and Mum247

on the banks of the Nile yesterday - it just

inclined its stately head and swooned till it cracked. It had got tugged in the long grass

once or twice and the jerks may have disconnected a line of weakness left by the fall

247

Or possibly the short version of the local name ‘memsahib’, and meaning Georgie

129

out of the ramshackle conveyance at Aberfeldy248

years249

ago in the Orange Free

State. However, we took it to a store where most obliging folk – I am quite unable to

guess their nationality – took it in hand and said they’d try to mend it, though there

was no umbrella mender anywhere in Rejaf. We bought a few articles – soap (our

huge blue and white basket disappeared, the only thing we know of, and of course the

absent Cosia250

is the one Mustapha suggests and we all suspect), ammonia for our

bites, and lime juice for the non-alcoholic Georgie.

Then we went on for G to pay the Mamur for the men from Gumbari to Rejaf,

and for the ferry. The Rest houses had been paid for in advance from Nimule (14/- for

the two of us) sharing [?] together what was paid to both Mamurs. The trip has cost

£17.5 without the chairs which were £4.40 and the food and outfit (chop boxes, iron,

axe, flour, tinned stuffs, rice) for which Mr Morris in Kampala was paid about £17. So

this 94 [.ulls?] or so has been at £38 or £39 – say £40 with incidentals, fairly

expensive. This too omits our well-beloved Mustapha who will have cost Georgie £8

(including fare) and the efficient Erissa, a Buganda who having been in Nairobi, gets

Nairobean wages (£9.5 for wages and £3.10 for fares). Fares have to be paid both

ways of course and their wages up till the time they can reach home in the shortest

time possible. Mustapha gets only his government wage (which has already been paid

to Mr Skinner) and his share of Cosia’s fortnight. Of course they get a present as well,

from me at all events. These domestic details are not my business – still less that of

those to whom these letters may come, but I record it as of possible use to possible

enquirers later on.

The Mamur has invited us to tea with him and the Egyptian Bey whose name,

not pronounced as spelt, is Kheiry – Kh is like the Scotch ch, the rest of the letters like

nothing on earth. The Sudan is under a governor general who has under him five?

Governors. These have Deputy governors and then under these, District

Commissioners of say two districts each. Each district has a Mamur - then the steps

go down Sub Mamur, Chief of Police, police. These police wear white round hats

white tunic and shorts and white puttees and there is a green feather or pompom in

their hats.

So far 1.40pm Thursday, the Gunthers have not turned up. They are supposed

to be a day only behind us and as we got in yesterday morning I am a little anxious for

them.

My hope of seeing Mustapha the Askari, as is the proper way to call him, do

the washing of my cerise scallops has been blighted. Erissa seems to have done them,

Mustapha having washed Georgie’s little pile. However, he may do the ironing. I

snapped him, to his great amusement this morning while washing vigorously at the

camp bath. He and Erissa solve the problem of aching backs and a low tub by sitting

down to wash. They have rigged up a rope and our display of laundry is truly gay.

248

While visiting south of Johannesburg in May, for unknown reasons, presumably to a relative as

there are no other known tourist sites there 249

She just feels that April in South Africa is a very long time ago, given how much they have done

since then 250

Here she is spelling his name as she did originally

130

My face I have not seen for a week. If it in any way resembles my arms which

alas I do see, I don’t want to look at it and did not, even when I took it this afternoon

to have tea with Georgie, the Mamur and the Egyptian Bey at the Mamur’s. These

gentlemen were both in European dress, the Syrian is quite of European type, a nice

fellow. The other is fat and inscrutable, we did not get any interesting information

from him – and when we told him we wished to see the old Roman mines near Quft,

he merely said ‘Good God’. But the Mamur gave us Reuters’ telegrams about the

English Election and the Turkish business.251

Illus. 27. Untitled. Probably a wood station on the Nile

Friday [20th

Oct]

Took Mustapha at 5.30am and climbed the conical hill, very hot work,

perspired violently so that my very dress was wet to the waist. On our return,

Mustapha gave a vivid performance to Erissa of someone fainting with weariness and

being driven on. I asked if he was describing me and he said Apana, mem – no – me I

want sit. Memsahib say, Givendra (go on) - a picture I scarcely recognized but find

gratifying, and it amuses him. From the top we saw a big stone about which Mustapha

told me a long story of which I understood nothing, so we plunged down the almost

vertical hillside to investigate. It was in a little cemetery in which small iron crosses

painted white bore many French and Flemish names, all, I think, of military men, a

relic of the Belgian occupation of the Lado Enclave. 252

The big stone is holy to the natives and offerings of ground nuts (peanuts) are

left there. We reached home after a fine view of the Nile meandering north about 7am

and had breakfast over by ten to eight. It rained heavily just after our return. The

Gunther party arrived at 8.30am having made two stages between Gumbari and

Tombe Moussa, all very fit. Mr G had had a mule for part of the way, and rode in a

chair slung low part of the way from Gumbari [to] here. Still, it is quite a good exploit

for a man obviously over sixty. They had a few adventure […] conditions. One

251

War with Greece 1919-1922 252

A Congo Free State force under Louis Napoléon Chaltin reached the Nile at the town of Bedden in

the enclave in February 1897. Chaltin defeated the Mahdists there in the battle of Rejaf. Perhaps they

were the graves of those killed in this altercation.

131

morning when they were leaving very early, about three, word came in that elephants

were on the march and as much as the party wanted to shoot, they could not set out till

day break for luckily Mr Mackenzie knew about elephants, that they charge lights, he

having often had his camp fire put out by them. When the party went on, the spoor

and the grass showed that about 200 had been along the road. They saw plenty of lion

spoor too but never an elephant or a lion. However, when none of the party with guns

were near enough to secure the trophy, Mr Gunther in his chair, saw a fine warthog

tramp quickly past him. Mrs Gunther had also the dismal experience of putting her

hand into one of her mosquito boots and seizing a frog. Frogs and lizards abound here,

even in their rest tuckles 253

(whatever tuckles sic may mean). G and I watched a

couple of the former try to catch moths diving in and out under the uneven poles of

our very elementary doorway – but so far, thank heaven, have not found them in

anything we prepared to wear.

Saturday 21st Oct.

Yesterday afternoon witnessed a storm in a teacup – we had asked the Mamur

and his friend the Bey to a return afternoon tea at four or thereabouts. At two Erissa

indicated a desire to look for eggs – in company with the Gunther party’s boys. At

3.30pm we desired preparations to begin. No Erissa – no Mustapha, no elderly

gentleman in rags, the nyempasa or headman of the porters who is helping them in

return for a promised present. I’ve called, blown the whistle – useless. At 4pm we

noticed a native in shorts and blue shirt walking thro’ the compound – a little later the

Bey and the Mamur passed and looked in – then Erissa arrived and was greeted with

indignation. He retired hurriedly and soon we saw the return of Mustapha and a few

brief words interchanged between them. Then Erissa came to say that a boy wanted to

know did we expect gentlemen, and on the heels of this, the Bey and the Mamur

arrived. They had not been able to decide whether they had been invited for Friday or

Saturday, had passed to see if we would hail them, and had sent scouts to enquire of

our – absent - retainers. They brought more Reuters, with no news of Greece,

however, and we smoked and had tea which however was not a success as the 5/- cake

Georgie had purchased was dry. However conversation was quite positive – the

Mamur thinks life here makes one “too wild”. He wants to get back to Beirut where it

is “oh very civilized”. He is thirty-five, has been seventeen years in the Government

service so at the end of three years he gets his pension. As he refers also to this happy

event occurring in 1924, dates are a bit mixed up somewhere – I wonder very much

how the administration gets along for Great Britain when so many foreigners help in

it. But the present Mamur here is quite an attractive chap with a nice honest

expression. He was educated at an American college in Syria so does not talk French

as most of his compatriots do. These are educated as a rule he says, by Jesuits.

About ten to six the Gunthers and Mr Holt came to call and the others made

their departure.

After these had gone also, Erissa and Mustapha distinctly under a cloud, went

about their duties with extremely increased efficiency. Their efforts were received in

stony silence. We knew not what to say to Mustapha as there is no language in

common for anything elaborate, but it was clear he felt in disgrace. When he brought

253

tukels, which are small, round mud and grass huts.

132

my bath there were none of the friendly gestulations we indulge in but when I felt the

water and still said nothing he could bear it no longer. Missouri (all right?) he asked

cheerfully and I replied Mustapha, apana missouri. We want tea. Apana Mustapha,

apana Erissa. We alone, Gentlemen to tea, apana Missouri, apana.

This eloquence, which was convulsing Georgie outside, provoked a long

explanation, which as I understood only one word in it (givenda to go), I received

with an embittered shrug. Georgie was merely silent when he got things for her

pathetically, remembering to bring his own rug to hang as a curtain, and in short, the

whole household was plunged into mourning. It was most ridiculous that this

administering of very mild rebuke to our erring ones should depress us also, but it did.

Erissa gave us an admirable dinner which we could not praise and we all went to bed,

most melancholy. This morning tea was got at 6am most noiselessly, mine brought

with just the right amount of milk and when it was perceived that the atmosphere was

changed, both of them revived and Mustapha with his head turned aside, breathed the

word cigarette – none had been given yesterday. I asked him did he dare ask for

cigarettes and he covered his face with his hands. Needless to say they got a box each.

As today is Saturday we sent Mustapha to the Mamur’s office for his rifle

(where he had to give it) up as we wait to take his photo and Erissa’s. This was a

most serious performance, Erissa keeping us waiting while he washed his feet for the

ceremony. He has made buttonies for this afternoon tea of the other party which is

marked for this afternoon – bachelor’s buttons that is.

Today we are beginning preparations to go to the boat on Monday morning.

Georgie was able to sell our lamps, iron, flour, biscuits to one of the Greek shops for

about a 3rd

of the price she gave in Kampala. Jam in tins they would not buy.

Mustapha and Erissa will start to go back, presumably as soon as we have gone. They

are to have a porter as the Gunther boys are being given one and it would never do

after their admirable behaviour, to make them hump their own swags – at least it

would be infra dig for Mustapha who has his rifle and bayonet to carry. I shall feel

sorry never to see his jolly [childish?] countenance again.

Today has been wildly gay – indeed. In Rejaf we may be said to have gone the

pace, one day tea at the Mamur’s, the next the Mamur and Bey to tea with us, an extra

visit, so to speak, from the Gunthers and Mr Holt and then today, Mr Holt and the

Gunthers to tea with sardine sandwiches and buttonies, and, as a grand finale, Morris

the Missionary arrived from Aba in the mission motor van, and was invited to dinner.

Erissa rose nobly to the occasion except that he protested lack of saucepans when I

asked for the salmon hot with white sauce and we had canned tomato soup, salmon,

roast mutton, onions and two potatoes, our last, tinned pears, buttonies, biscuits and

cheese and coffee. At lunch we even had quite a liberal supply of cream culled by

Erissa from the fresh milk we get here in bottles brought in a basket on a woman’s

head. 2 ½ per bottle (cow’s milk). Mr Morris brought fruit for us which he had left

with the Gunthers.

Sunday 22nd [Oct.]

Word has reached us that the Omdurman would be in this morning at nine and

we heard its whistle considerably earlier. So we have spent a violent morning packing.

133

Before eight, I think, an askari with a string of perfectly naked coal black porters

arrived. Some affected such fripperies as a band of something below the knee, or a

necklace with a disk, but only one wore clothes and the rest nothing. We were not

ready for them so they squatted in the sand until we were, when they went to take the

Bey’s things from the resthouse opposite. He too kept them waiting but finally we

departed. Georgie had business with the Mamur, so Mustapha in undress, carrying

my open basket, Erissa armed with cameras, twenty black nudes, the askari in white

bearing my spear, as most befitting to his warriorship I suppose, and myself, in blue

and white to complete the contrast, marched down to the boat. I have never seen so

many natives in this savage condition of clothing as today.

The paying off of Erissa and Mustapha was effected by Georgie, apparently to

their satisfaction as each thought he was being given something for the other. One

feels anxious lest they should waste their fare money but Erissa, who is the more

sophisticated, is very fond of Mustapha – like us and his old friends here who greeted

him with such enthusiasm, will perhaps be able to look after himself and Mustapha

too. I gave M a metal cigarette case and he chanted his thanks in the most caressing

tones, then brought it back and with gestures seemed to inquire if matches could be

stuck on it. I shook my head, but later he and Erissa appealed to Georgie and all three

came to me with a request for a chit. It seems that a native in possession of such a

treasure would be suspected of theft, so I wrote a note, this cigarette case belongs to

Mustapha, I gave it to him as a present on Safari, signed and sealed it and all was

well.

Erissa told Georgie we were good memsahibs. We laughed. And Mustapha,

bidding me farewell, made his hand into a sort of entrée dish and with one of mine in

the middle waved them gently up and down. Probably they and the Gunther’s ‘boys’

will have a glorious time going home, except that they want to hurry because of

“dudus”. They can’t get porters today, the Mamur says, as these are all required for

the ship – we don’t sail till 5am or thereabouts tomorrow but have all come on board.

We lunched well and the waiters, Arab looking folk in Turbans, seem efficient but at

present the ship is not clean. The Bey, to whom I mentioned the noise the natives

make in their work, said: they are not paid much, which seems quaint.

The engineer, Mr Wells, a young man not long out and on his first trip on this

part of the river, seems to be the person to whom to appeal for all information. There

is a Belgian or Swede in Belgium’s service at our table to meals in shirt sleeves so we

feel gratified at the presence of this engineer. Poor man, his wife has just had a baby

and has gone mad. He is taking her home. A native woman helps with the baby. This

native girl is in the ordinary native dress of coloured cotton stuff wound around her

but looks different from other native women. I think it is her hair which is long and

frizzy and done with a little knob at the back. The wife was at the mission hospital of

Mr Morris and attended by an American missionary doctoress who says she thinks she

could have pulled her through in a fortnight or so. But the Catholics, who have great

powers in the Congo, got at the husband and made him take her away. However, this

maybe, there is not political rivalry between Catholic and Protestant here by all

accounts – just religion.

After afternoon tea at which once more the detested Marie biscuit reappeared

– it seems to be an international dish in Africa - Mrs Gunther and I climbed the

134

conical hill, found a pot of red paint up there and added our initials to the many others

there. I grunted and puffed going up, not so Mrs Gunther who is in good trim. Coming

down, what with long wet elephant grass and rocks, it was very slippery and we

arrived at the boat hot and dirty. The bath tho hot was extremely muddy, with the mud

the solution that makes the cotton grow in Egypt. Had a talk with Mr Holt. He is in

full accord with the British policy which takes 10/6 out of every pound he earns in

order to pay off Britain’ s debts to foreign countries although admits that this has

meant curtailment of expenditure and enterprise and lack of employment. He wants

more women in Parliament for committee work on social questions of all kinds. Mrs

Gunther tells me he has, as an engineer, built many of the railways of which he is now

director. Missionary pineapple for dinner. Our beds have holland sheets and pillow

cases – rather ugly.

The beginning of the final ‘run’ to Cairo on the Nile via Khartoum, Abu

Hamad and Wadi Halfa. .

Monday 23rd

Oct

Was awake when the boat started on its 1,089 miles to Khartoum – it goes at

good speed, but all is very uncomfortable and we can see little but papyrus because of

heavy rain. My watch too has gone feeble and stops every now and then. Still, it has

done well up to now, and there is a most comforting smell of toast in the offing. Have

stopped once – at Juba. Mr Holt says that the country here is extraordinarily like

Paraguay. About 8 o’clock passed and bumped into SS Tamai, on which an officer

commanding appeared in jade green and purple pyjamas, glasses and gumboots or

mosquito boots with green canvas tops. He is rather like Professor Tucker.254

Later, our Belgian has been moved and another man, a Mr Bridge who has an

area of 800 miles to look after with regard to Post and Telegraphs, has taken his place

at our table. He tells us the pyjama gentleman is Woodlands, Governor of Mongala,

and one of the best if not the best Arabic scholars in the country. He was a wrangler 255

in Mathematics, but is, he says, mad going among the natives with nothing on but a

shirt, and, departing, from sheer caprice, without an engineer to go up the river in his

boat. This boat can have guns, it was used, with the guns in place, when the Lado

enclave was taken over from the Belgians, just in case of trouble.

We reached Mongala round about 11 am. Ugly brick buildings and all sorts of

natives – some in European dress, some in nothing, others swathed variously. Some

native official has just past sic with a straw hat cocked up with a cockade of red and

green, like a Scotch thistle. The rest of the attire is white – Turbans abound. A barge

has been taken on – we are now sandwiched between two of them which blocks the

view unduly. On the barge next to the shore, a very black woman (probably Sudanese)

draped in blue is sitting in a chair like ours. Several men wait on her from time to

time. Four huge sticks of sugar cane have been brought and laid beside her on the

254

Thomas Tucker, professor of Classical Philology, Melbourne University (1886-1919) 255

Wrangler – in Mathematics, an old English term for someone with prizes in the subject

135

ground and on her knee sits a small very black child in a dingy little shirt of green

black and white with a gorgeous orange silk hankerchief knotted around its head.

Mr Bridges asked her to show me the baby but she turned her head away, then

he asked an askari to ask her who replied that her husband, not having given her

permission, she feared his anger if she showed the baby.

In the afternoon we reached Sum-Suma, a wood station where we remained all

night. With Kabola, Tanga, Fitu Legu and one or two other places, it will be indelibly

associated in my mind with mosquitos.

A Captain Bostock, who is giving up his command of […] to take over a

Sudanese regiment, has come on board with two beautifully fine little dogs, rather like

long grey hounds, at least their heads are. They are called Nyum-Nyum dogs from the

tribe that breeds them. The breed has been kept pure – they are raised for hunting and

eating. The captain, a slight, nice looking man, who reminded me in appearance of

Miss Gilman Jones, is a most aggressive person in manner, tho’ this may be due to a

sort of nervousness.

We dropped Mr Brookes, the postal man, at Bor, a still more mosquito-

stricken place than the rest. There were plenty of lights not due to the little crowd

assembled on the landing. Khiery Bey tells [that] they are part of the preparations for

celebrations of Mohamet’s birthday on the 29? Oct. I bought Poole’s book ‘The

Harbour’ from the library for 14 piastres (5p.to the shilling) and like it so far, very

much.

Illus. 28. Untitled. Appears to be at one of stops along the Nile in the Sudan (JW)

25th

[October]

Heard faint sounds of the unfortunate lady singing or crying. Woke to find a

queue of mosquitos waiting to enter my net, and lay long to try and wear them out.

Learnt at breakfast that at different periods of the year people in gov. service get

increased pay from varying places south of Kosti (two days out from Khartoum). At

present the Commander of the boat gets 2/- a day extra, the sailors two milliones?

136

(which is appreciable for them, not us). Wrote postcards before breakfast. This is the

White Nile Travelling Post Office and letters etc stamped here will bear these initials

or some of them. At present Mr and Mrs Gunther, G and myself are in the mosquito

room on deck, but the river winds so very much it is hard to dodge the sun – one no

sooner moves into the shade than it becomes the sunny side. There is some

amusement over my fortunes to reach me, though how, it would be hard to say, on the

28th

. An Indian at Kampala whom I refused the privilege of telling my fortune for £2,

on the score of my being too poor, replied, Ah yes, perhaps now Madame, but on the

28th

Oct --! so £700,000 is what I am expecting - - !

We have just turned a hairpin curve in the river which is here so narrow the

boat seemed to block it and to be incapable of getting round. On each side of us is a

wide expanse of papyrus, creeper (with occasional flowers like convolvulus) or a few

shrubs. It is all on swamps which together with evaporation, accounts for so much

wastage of the Nile. It is now a much smaller river than nearer its source.

After the fires of the dry season the banks are more interesting we are told

because of the game [being] visible. This morning Georgie saw a school of hippo, six

in all, tho she saw four only. I was busy with a school of mosquitos, in my cabin.

Today we have been in the Sudd practically ever since Bor. The river takes

almost hairpin curves. About 4pm we came to Shamba or Shambe, a god-forsaken

spot where no European lives we are told. A huge dead crocodile lay on the bank, one

of the most hideous things I have ever seen. After we left (some long horned cattle

were taken on board) Colonel Bostock (the man like Miss Gilman Jones) gave us

some five gramophone records till long after dark – Eames, Wagner, Chopin etc. He

was telling us of a photograph he had got of a hanging the other day, so after his

records I enquired why he took such a photograph. He maintains it was far worse to

photograph a woman who was trying to get a divorce as the English papers do. I

maintained Gov actions were quite uncivilized and he that the blacks who were

hanged would be quite flattered. These men had murdered a merchant and according

to the Bey, as this Captain is called – he is in the Egyptian army – were converted

with cigarettes and food by Italian missionaries a day or two before they were

executed. A missionary took the photograph also, for their mission paper, not as a

protest against the killing but in order to - somehow - comfort their readers with the

fact that the men had become Christians in time. How much their conversion meant

however, may be guessed from the fact that they spent their last night singing

cheerfully “we are brave men, we killed the merchant”.

After dinner we had a talk to the captain or whatever is the title of the

Engineer, the only white man of the crew: his parents were Welsh and Irish, and one

of his grandparents was a Jew. He is a fine big fellow with a long face and long nose

that may be a bit Jewish; he goes on his way placidly, and listens cheerfully to the

undeserved criticism of his catering with which Colonel Bostock favours him. Like

many others eg young Lloyd at Fort Portal he suffered from the slump in Engineering

work in England, and after working for Cadburys, who are splendid he says to work

for, and giving it up, unwisely, for something that seemed better but was not, he came

out to this service. It is graded, his is grade V. The best positions are I, II, III, and it is

rarely anyone gets from IV or V to these. Promotion comes by salary however, and a

man in a lower grade may get as much as another in III, tho the maximum in II would

137

be greater than the maximum of V or V. The captain sees some scope for himself

ahead as by transference to the Irrigation or Agricultural Depts. An engineer may get

promoted to the higher grades. As far as the army is concerned here in the Soudan,

and also the Immigration Department, it is paid for by Egypt – the taxes levyable in

the Soudan pay for govt. officials only. Labour being difficult to secure, the Sudan

railways have had, I gather, to be worked by the military, a railway battalion. Salaries

in the Egyptian army are high: the Bey (English) gets about £1000 a year and there is

talk of an extra £200. The Egyptian Bey, the engineer; will also, according to the

Captain, be very highly paid and he does work in the Soudan ? therefore why

Northcliffe256

saw that it was time facts were faced and the word ‘Egyptian’ dropped

in the title ‘Anglo-Egyptian Sudan

Illus. 29. Untitled. It would appear to be a wood station loading point in the Sudan. (JW)

Thursday 26th

Oct.

Up later than usual, not being out til 7.10am – still wandering through Sudd

which extends on our left for some 16 miles and on our right we can see trees so its

extent cannot be great. This swamp acts as a sponge and the Egyptian Bey tells us that

sometimes 2/3 of the water is absorbed by it and only 1/3 left. The papyrus growing in

it is about 80% water. Before the war a German firm was trying to make briquettes

out of it, but tho the war prevented a fair trial of their methods, the quantity of water

in the papyrus makes it very doubtful whether the scheme would pay. I shouldn’t like

to be one of the pioneers to collect the papyrus, crocodile and pythons being among

the inhabitants of the Sudd – we have just seen a huge hippo bathing – hitherto I’ve

seen only their heads in the river but this chap showed his back as well. Lighter in

colour than I expected and rather like a very big pig.

Mrs Gunther, who is sitting writing near-by, has just told me a little more

about her visit to Rhodesia, which is typical of the place but quite unlike anything we

saw in our hurried trip there. She was on the company’s big Estate there of over a

million acres (all under Mr MacKenzie but divided into about twenty sections with a

young Englishman managing each). She went out shooting one morning and

encountered two doe water buck and one calf. They were all trembling and came

256

Presumably Viscount Alfred Northcliffe (1865-1922), British journalist and newspaper publisher

138

within a foot of them so terrified they were. The man with Mrs Gunther interpreted

instantly “Dog” and raced up a kopje. She followed and came on to a group of wild

dogs, two sorts hunting together which is very rare, one sort like a collie, the other

reddish brown. They had the other calf and were worrying it – Mrs G or the man

fired, killing one and the rest fled, and though they pursued, they got no more. On

return the calf had gone so had presumably recovered. The dogs which Mrs Gunther

was lucky to see as they are rarely visible in the day time, are one of the curses of

Rhodesia and do far more damage to cattle, than, for instance, lions, for the lion kills

and eats one, where the dogs in a few minutes maim vitally ten or twelve bulls.

Later. The day has passed peacefully without a stop. We shall have been

thirty-six hours at least between Bor and Tombe,257

our next calling station.

Talks with the Bey and with the captain who is a simple youth, much

concerned, without priggishness, lest a lady ‘Missionary’ of twenty-three whom he

took to Rejaf on his last trip (whom I saw for a minute, a pretty girl) should have

fallen in love with him. I suggested that it was his soul to be saved that interested her

and he replied, even so, if she is, and doesn’t get it, it’s a nasty trick, then he groaned

quite seriously.

Added on Friday 27th

– Colonel Bostock gave us a concert with his

gramophone till 10pm or later. We sat on the top deck, the gramophone at the front

end, a dun figure with extraordinary legs (mosquito boots) moved about, putting on

the records. We could see the banks on either side, felt the lame tramp of the paddle

that came down more heavily on one side than the other, felt as if we were being

drawn along on an invisible stream and heard the Valkyrie and whatnot played or

sung to us. It was very cool too.

[Crossed out para] 10.30am have just passed two natives in the Sudd, perched up on

a hut or something nearly hidden by the papyrus – don’t know how they got there or

what possible sort of life they can lead. The Nile here is only about three times as

wide as the boat. Just after lunch saw some water buck which are supposed to be rare

on left ie east side of the boat. [End of crossed out para]

Friday 27th

[Oct.]

A damnable night. Woke oozing at every pore, heard the poor woman singing

in the very early morning, and evidently tossed my mosquito curtain a little for when I

woke again, I had been amply bitten even on the eye – I could not dress quickly

because stockings had to be taken off again and again to rub bites on toes and ankles.

It is now about 7.30am. We have been paddling for some time between low

banks on which is grass, not papyrus, therefore solid soil, and are just arriving at

Tonga. The country is now forest land, tho the trees do not here come near to the

river.

Tonga has a small brick building near the river. Out of it, natives in white

robes brought praying mats of varying colours but Kheiry Bey says better are

257

Tombe is actually south of Bor.

139

obtainable at Omdurman, and Captain, not Colonel, Bostock speaks of some place

further along the river, so we purchase none. Georgie and I played our baby bridge till

lunch (Bridge patience). Meanwhile we passed the Sobat junction, water clearer now.

At 1.30pm we stopped at Tenfikia (stress now on penultimate) where the guide book

assures us Sir Samuel Baker258

had his head quarters in 1867? But it is far too hot to

care.

Before tea we reached Malakal. Two little settlements near each other, the

most southerly the military, the other the civilian. The people here are Shilluks259

and

have sometimes a most curious style of hairdressing. The hair (men’s) is coloured

brown like a door mat, with mud? and spread at the back over a frame till it looks

somewhat like a Breton cap. I took photos but the ornate ones were in the shade and I

have doubts of the results.

Two men are washing clothes in two tin dishes by the river and drying the

clothes on the bank. One man has on a brown bracelet above the elbow of his right

arm, a tin coloured one on his left wrist, his hair is dyed brown, and round it a fillet of

green, while he also has a necklace like Queen Alexander’s, but green also. No

clothes on.

The doctor has been wired to come on board here for the poor Swedish

woman. Later. He came, told the husband to get her to Khartoum as soon as possible

and not go further.

A terrific storm came on - with hail. This year there has been hail several

times but not before for sixty years. Called at Lul.

Saturday 28th

[Oct.]

Awakened by captain about 1 o’clock. He – are you awake, it’s the 28th

. We

were at Kodok (ie Fashorda260

) and I’d have got up to see it by moonlight but that I

thought we’d be there till the morning, the engineer having “a job of work” there to

measure a cracked piston or something so it could be replaced from Khartoum.

However, I saw only some lights thro’ my mosquito net, for this morning when I was

dressing, we were already leaving Melut. Dr Trudinger of the mission came and

Georgie went off with him, had tea and now scones at 7 o’clock no less.

After Melut we stopped at Kaka where we saw some mats, and in the

afternoon, at Shokaba for more wood. Nothing is very striking, except the hair

dressing of the Shilluks, and the obvious mixture with Arabs shown by the refined

features of many natives – wearing also the gelabeah of the Arab. We had another

smaller storm in the afternoon while we were getting wood at Chukane. We saw and

photographed a weird native dance in which men and women both performed – it

consisted of rather graceful movements with arms raised, then most vigorous jumping.

258

Samual Baker, the Explorer (1821-1893), who with his wife Florence, contributed to determining

the source of the White Nile. It was 1870 that they had their base at Tewfikeeyah to capture slave boats

and free slaves 259

Shilluks, a Neolithic people 260

Fashoda was the site of an incident in 1898 when the French (through Marchand) and British

(through Kitchener) famously resolved a territorial conflict by diplomacy, not war.

140

The Egyptian officer sleeps in his cabin it is said with his enormous wife, a

child and a handmaiden. I wonder they don’t all choke. He sits in the ‘sandal’ (barge)

away from us – this barge has been made a sitting room as its upper deck is empty.

At night G has a headache and went to bed early. Called at Galhak – very

picturesque in the darkness. A big native boat with a mast for a huge sail lay by the

shore. Under a beautiful tree stood a group of white robed natives or Arabs. The grass

was high but a sort of path ran down to our gang-way or thereabouts and Arab-like

people came along and on board bearing lit hurricane lamps or safari candles. These

are splendid things of which I hope to remember to bring a specimen to Australia.

Illus. 30. Sketch of ‘safari candle’ (JW)

The captain’s comments on Mr Gunther, after our united efforts to amuse him had

resulted in a cordial, “How remarkable” and then silence, was, “Mister Gunther is not

a conversationalist”.

Sunday 29th Oct.

Cooler night and fewer mosquitos in my cabin. Called at Renk (here it said

that true negroid races cease, further north are all Arab natives) about 3am and on

rising found a new passenger, a Mr Majall, who had been in bed and asleep when the

boat’s whistle woke his people, who woke him and sent him running for a mile to

catch the boat. It was due about 11 am. The Manager, Mr Nankovitch, tells me the

baby died last night. How he lived so long in that cabin I don’t know. It has never

been brought out during the day at least; tho it’s on the same deck with us, we have

not seen it. The wife has twice tried to throw herself overboard.

We stopped at a wood station and reached Gemalien about 1.30. Saw camels

for first time, as it is the furthest south they come.

Later. The baby is being buried here. The father, a pale unfinished looking

Swede, declined the captain’s offer to read a service, saying it would make no

difference. Surprisingly, Captain Bostock, who rails aggressively at religion,

missionaries and so on and is tryingly ‘young’, is much disturbed, says a white baby

should not be buried in a blackman’s […] like a dog and went for his coat and tie and

has accompanied the little party to the grave. We were sitting on the barge when

suddenly natives appeared on the gangway below us carrying a basket with mosquito

net over it – then came a few people – the captain, the father, some official from the

141

village and Captain Bostock and they are burying the poor little thing under a tree

some hundred yards beyond the village and further along the bank – they are so long

that they may after-all be having some service.

The Harem woman appeared unveiled at the door of her cabin. She looked

plain and fat but European, quite white. The procession is now coming back – a lot of

natives in flowing robes have joined it. The women here are very black and wear dark

blue which is not becoming to them. All are very tall and thin. One man and woman

met and embraced most warmly, not kissing but leaning their heads together – others

touch hands and then kiss their own hand. Evidently we have been waiting for the

funeral for now the whistle has gone and the gangways are being pulled in.

A conversation between Captain Bostock and Mr Majall, an inspector

(virtually a DC) of the district round Melut: The Dinkas are a bad tribe there – won’t

work, have no pride of race etc – the fault due to bad chiefs who are hereditary, tho

the succession does not go from father to son necessarily. The Shilluks are better

people. It is they who affect the felt fan arrangement of the hair, tho sometimes the

Dinka copy them. There is an interesting brochure on Shilluk customs by “a chap

with a Hun name”.

The villages we stop at have all flags flying and a number of what look like

May poles in honour of the birth of the Prophet. But his birthday is given as the 29th

Aug. in the guide book – Captain Bostock explains that there is a difference of ten

days in the time of the festival every year.

At night we went through to the Bridge at Kosti – a most interesting

experience. The reis - one of the natives who do all the navigation of the boat, Berbers

generally – managed it most skilfully. It was moonlight, and the river very wide with

a strong current. The bridge at first looked like a black line blocking the river, but

resolved itself into a huge structure of about twelve spans – a solid pier in the middle.

Two spans, one on each side of the pier, had been swung around so that a way on each

side was clear for the boat to go through – for it could not go under the bridge. To me

it seemed improbably we should, three abreast as we were ie the boat with a barge on

each side as well as in front, be able to pass. The current too was running slightly to

the left, against the pier. So the reis headed the boat for the second span on the right of

the opening, and let the boat drift round till we gently touched the pier for a moment

and then just slipped through the opening. It can be done with two barges on each

side, the captain says, but he considers the reis a first rate sea or rather water-man. He

has been twenty-five years on the river. Georgie bucked about, saying “neat, very

neat” in great excitement.

Captain Bostock and his dogs got off here. I had forgotten he was to do so and

did not photograph the animals which is a breed I’ll never see again.

It was extraordinarily hot. I had a hot bath in the afternoon and came out after

dressing nearly desperate; my neck was so red and moist that it looked like it was

bleeding. Sat on deck till about 11am, a record. Georgie went to sleep. I talked to Mr

142

Mackenzie whose views on labour would make Smilie love Dorothea Spinney261

in

comparison with him.

30th [Oct.]

Packed – got the Farash (the cabin ‘boy’) to look for a mislaid pound note

which he discovered under my tallboy. Stopped at Kawa opposite which there was a

first glimpse of desert. The Nile is flooded here – many of the trees or the forest as a

wood seems to be called here are under water.

During the day the typical mud walls of the Arabs began to be seen; tho’ there was

some greenery the desert could be seen beyond. At night it was most impressive to see

the width of the Nile. We seemed to be sailing in a wide bay and bays are often

smoother.

Illus. 31. The Nile in flood and first glimpse of the desert opposite Kawa (JW)

Talked to the captain about the war at night. He is one of the disillusioned

young men. He is one of a million (he said) [who] believed Lloyd George’s promise

to make England “a land for heroes to live in” and says that the great wars of the men

have gained nothing at all, labour conditions being worse instead of better. We called

at Duerrn and Geteesia. We are ahead of time. The bridge was opened because of

important passengers (the Gunthers) and sickness (the Swedish lady’s) and otherwise

we should have had to wait outside.

31st Oct. Tuesday

Arriving ahead of time. Reached Khartoum and letters before lunch. The

Director of Transport who has received or read some letter of introduction of

Georgie’s took us from the boat in his motor launch to the river steps of the Grand

261

Smilie and Dorothea Spinney: John Smilie (1741-1812) was an Irish-American Philadelphia

politician who was an outspoken opponent of slavery and proponent of Rights. Dorothea Spinney was a

noted English actress who toured Australia performing Shakespearean plays and Greek tragedies, in the

early part of the C20. The reference may be that Mr McKenzie had extremely right-wing views on

labour which would have appalled Smilie and that this was a tragedy.

143

Hotel. The Chief of Police and Mr Lion262

the very aristocratic looking gentleman

(and haughty too) who runs it, took us to the celebrations in honour of the birthday of

the prophet. Motor launch to Omdurman263

– donkeys – pink drinks – lots in each

Government pavilion and refreshment ‘room’. Dancing dervishes – home after

midnight. Mr Whitehead to lunch and Mr Crowfoot called after tea and took two

films.

Wednesday 1 Nov.

Holiday in honour of Mohamet. Went over Gordon College264

. Mr Crowfoot,

Mr Whitehead and a Mr – who professes Arabic and teaches History.

Thursday 2nd Nov.

Arabia to Chemists for photos - negatives good - at various bt. […] box; went

to bank; medical dept, rapidly dismissed; railways re our berths etc to Shillal all fixed

up. Are going to dinner with Mr Crowfoot tonight and Mr Whitehead on Sat.

11.15pm Dinner a success. Mr Crowfoot, classical student as well as Director

of Education and principal of Gordon College knows about Mycenean pottery – has

helped trace Roman routes in Asia Minor – says to visit Palermo and C sic for

Normans as well as the rest and then to Ravenna for Justinian. There were present Mr

Lyle (or Lyell) act. governor and his dog, Mr and Mrs Husey, Mr Grabham, Capt.

Whitehead as well as our host and ourselves. Mr Lyles’ dog Mollie took a dislike to

us both and I know, very much we frightened her.

Friday 3rd Nov.

Left at 6.30am to Omdurman with the Dragoman.265

1. Train with steam

engine 2. ferryboat, the Evylyn – 3. steam-engine train again at Omdurman to the

market - ivory and silver, the women’s – the live market and then by train on return

journey to the Khalifa’s house266

, Mahdi’s tomb267

and Stalen Bey’s house, all near

Mahdi Square where the [Muder?] was held. At that rabbit warren called the

Khalaly’s house, saw Gordon’s carriage, several canon, the pistols and rifles of the

Dervishes (which our guide rather bewilderingly called revels) further on. In his house

proper we met an extraordinarily friendly young Englishman who had just come in

from Kassala268

– at all events an outlying district.

262

Lion - Lyons? 263

Omdurman, North Khartoum and Khartoum form the three ‘sister cities’ at the confluence of the

White and Blue Niles 264

Named after Charles George Gordon (1833-1885) who followed on the work of Baker by

establishing way-stations from the Sobat Confluence to the frontier of Uganda, became Governor

General of the Sudan and un-successfully led the defence of Khartoum in 1884 against the Mahdi, in

which he was killed and be-headed 265

Dragoman, guide and translator 266

The Khalifa succeeded the Mahdi. The house was built in 1887 and contains some interesting

features of the time 267

The Mahdi, Mohammed Ahmed, (1844-1885) led the rebellion against Gordon but died the same

year 268

Kassala, a cotton growing area near the Red Sea, east of Khartoum and inland from Port Sudan

144

Hot – very busy – back by 1.15 - lunch and sleep, after which felt execrable.

Nice friendly Englishman in the Khalif’s house proper. We had to see Gordon’s plans.

About 4.50pm went for our photos but they were not ready.

Saturday 4th Nov.

Most interesting visit to the museum of the Gordon College where they have

some exhibits from Dr Reisner’s Sudan excavations especially of Meroe. Merowe and

Meroe are different but I gathered both Ethiopian, Meroetic culture being the culture

that has had its headquarters at Merowe but was pushed further South and flourished

in the Ptolemaic period. The Kirma excavations belongs to the more flourishing.

Ethiopian period. Mr Andrews or Anderson of the Museum showed me over. I was

very taken with the duck chair and [bed ?] leg. Then Mr Hillelson, history lecturer,

but chiefly interested in linguistics, showed me over the college while G meanwhile

‘did’ entomology and a Vet. department at some distance from the college.

Dinner with Capt. Whitewood [sic Whitehead] at the Officer’s mess – open

air. Captain (Dr) Clayton or Vaughan, Capt. Warne, and Capt. Gateman also present.

Arrived 8.15, left 10 to 11 and had an interesting time. Captain Warn has been at the

Gold Coast before the war – all were very young.

Sunday 5th Nov.

Packed – caught train leaving Khartoum about 6pm. The Gunthers and Mr MacKenzie

also did so, Mr Holt having left on Wednesday. Dinner on board and played Bridge

[until?]11. Mrs G and I v G and Mr McKenzie – who each lost 2 sh. My first

winnings at cards.

We are on one of the sleeping birth cars – and have a compartment each tho at

times two can be put in. Therefore have much more room than ever before and slept in

comfort tho for a very short time. Curious dream of exquisite singing which I heard

two or three times. The singer sang out of doors and after I woke up I recognised that

the vision was like Mrs Gunther’s song tho’ not her – (written on Monday).

Monday 6th Nov. (written Monday)

Are passing thru’ desert at first. Rose about 6.30am, breakfasted and saw that

we were then near the Nile, on our left cultivation strips on the further bank. On the

other side of the train, desert only. Abu Amed [Hamad] where I took a photograph at

16 and a 50th then we soon left the river and desert extended on both sides – hills,

bare rocky hills with glaciers of sand ran sometimes on both sides, and near midday –

perhaps longer – the hills stood in little clear lakes of pale blue mirage – we saw a

little in Omdurman and could not believe it wasn’t water at the end of a side road till I

saw something, a man or animal I forget which, walk across it – Stations here have

numbers not names – are of tin - and are dreary looking enough to be a sort of station-

convicts.

Added Tuesday. Played bridge from afternoon-tea time, won 7sh! We reached

Halfa camp in the evening and waited there till morning because it was cooler, then

145

Wadi Halfa itself. This seems extraordinarily sensible of a state owned railway

management. G’s neuritis bad.

Illus. 33. “The Nile in flood and first glimpse of the desert opposite Kawa” (JW)

Tuesday 7th Nov.

Came on to Wadi Halfa - our boat not ready as it had had to go to the

assistance of another boat and was now coaling. A very sensible set of porters to

whom we give backshish only, they apparently being paid by the railways – I was

rushed thru’ by the chief engineer and was on board the Britain in no time. G’s

neuritis bad. Mrs G introduced the governor who, pointing to the skyline on the west

bank of the river, said that it used, in the Madhi’s time be common to see horsemen

riding along them shaking their spears at the English. The fort of W.H. was an

advance post for long. Kitchener 269

here for a considerable period. The Dervishes

knew all abut the forces’ habits apparently - knew that Friday was the washing day of

the Sudanese troops and one Friday galloped into the town, killed a few folk, got

plenty in loot and galloped away again while the troops were busy at the river.

Mr Lion, father of Mr Lion at the GH, is manager here – much less aristocratic

than his lordly son. After lunch we passed Abu Simbel, where are a group of temples

hewn in the living rock of Rameses Π, the chief to celebrate his victory, which was

not a real victory, over the Kheta tribes of North Syria. As we were late we could not

stop and so just tried to photograph from the boat - pretty hopeless- even at this

distance most impressive, tho ugly. The four huge figures by the door way could be

plainly seen but were in shadow. One much damaged. We had previously seen on the

south side of the river a doorway cut in rock – it was stimulating to the imagination –

one felt one could picture funeral barges bringing the body to that gate way. The

country is most extraordinary – it reminds me of South Africa or the Gr Au D270

especially, desert being subst. for veldt and bare hills for grassyness. At one place it

looked as if the childhood of the gods had been passed there, the relics of their

gigantic sandcastles and mud pies remaining.

Along each bank is a strip of cultivation, now wide now narrow, very green

and pleasant, palms grow too and other … coloured houses hardly distinguishable

from mole coloured hillock or hill in the back ground. The water wheels make variety,

for by them are workers in light navy blue linen robes – occasionally people with red

shirts and some dark coat – men or women I don’t know which. Then there are black

robed women walking in the desert at times.

[Abrupt end of Diary Record]

269

Lord Kitchener (1850-1916), had a railway built from Wadi Halfa across the Nubian dessert to Abu

Hamed to support the Battle of Omdurman, which the British won in 1896. This route is much shorter

than the one taken by the circuitous and cataract–ridden Nile. 270

Presumably the Great Australian dessert

146

2.3 TRANSCRIPT OF ANOTHER LETTER Covering part of the time spent in Cairo while staying at Rossmore House, catching

the train north to Alexandria on the shores of the Mediterranean and going by boat to

Athens.

“The Abbasieh”271

7th

Dec. 1922

Dearest Eff.

Ingrate! To ask for more personal letters when my long and interesting

effusions have been a series of I - I - I - till I blushed to send them. Some of the others

too have evidently handed them on to persons not mentioned on the list, persons to

whom I could have mentioned had I so desired. For I have received notes from some

of these folk saying they don’t know how I have had time to write all the letters

they’ve seen and c and c. I could willingly screw the necks of whoever handed on

some of my letters for I have been fairly candid, selecting as I thought, the people to

whom I wrote. Of course reading bits of a letter is no harm but I do think the other is

over the odds and Constance is the one I suspect. Her departure for Britain was

hurried wasn’t it? Perhaps we’ll meet there.

Well, here goes for a personal letter all about me. I have been having for the

last fortnight and more particularly for the last three days (5-7th

inclusive) my first

taste of travelling on my own, and believe me, I do like it very much.

After Georgie went up the river I stayed at Rossmore House272

till Tuesday 5th

Dec. doing very little sightseeing and enjoying the society of an interesting American

woman who claimed to be interested in me but never listened to a word I said. Her

husband Professor Hopkins273

(does Chemistry at Amherst) is ill with amoebic

dysentery, a very common disease in these parts and is in hospital. He is an attractive,

quiet individual and between them they have planned if I go to America to take

Professor Abel’s place there for me and to introduce me to people at all the

Universities or Colleges I desire. This is apparently inspired by gratitude for the

comfort I’ve been to Mrs Hopkins during her husband’s illness. How it beats me,

without undue modesty, to imagine, but my luck still holds with my own sex; they

seem to get some moral support from my cheerful inability to sew for them, nurse

them, sing to them or do for them in any way, for this they seem to feel and enjoy

some sense of obligation.

Did I have the same effect or half of it on the opposite sex, I could have a

really gay time but I don’t, unless that is what was the matter with a fat young

Egyptian who gave me the glad eye between Cairo and the station before Alexandria.

Cooks had bidden me travel 1st class, to the great indignation of Mrs Hopkins

who had travelled up from Alexandria 2nd

- and in great comfort. However, as my

ticket was bought I sat me down in style and then the young man got in and wasted no

271

Alexandria 272

Rossmore House was a pensionne run by Misses Greenwel and Chicholl (c1914) in Shari-

Madabegh, Cairo. A photo of the building can be seen in reference, J00176, Australian War Memorial 273

Presumably Arthur John Hopkins (1864-1939), Professor Chemistry, Amherst 1907-1934

147

time whatever in trying to attract my attention. The light must have been kind to my

advancing years, for he ogled me from one corner then made some excuse of sitting

next [to] another man who was on the same side as I, then manoeuvred to lean against

my arm and eye me at short range to see how I took it. He was fairly puzzled when I

leant against him slightly once or twice but returned to absorption in my book or the

window when he began to think things were progressing. Soon however my cold

became an ungracious chaperone and he returned to his own seat and gave up hope of

a flirtation with an Englishwoman.

My cold is a brute, the only one I have had since leaving home and was

contracted at the dullest show it has ever been my lot to witness. Mahommed Hassan,

the dragoman at Rossmore House, took three American ladies, two Scotch ones and

myself to a restaurant frequented by natives, ie Egyptians. We ordered and watched a

band of about five men and a girl who looked European in their midst. She was pretty

and much painted. She sang a wild sort of song, or rather shouted it – a sort of

monotone with a strange high note now and again. She seemed popular with her

audience and with the bandsmen who chatted and laughed with her rather pleasantly.

Then she danced. She was in black silk European evening dress but the dance was one

of those writhing ones they used to dance sufficiently disrobe[ed] to show the

undulations of the muscles, until, according [to] Hassan, it was stopped because it

spoiled the soldiers. Had they seen it as we did, I guarantee the soldiers would have

spoiled the dance, for it was a dull ugly thing, expurgated till there was nothing left

but ugliness. This girl took a fancy to me, like Mrs Hopkins, and came to ask where

my husband was. “Haven’t one” said I “Yours?” She hesitated then pointed out a …

young Egyptian at a table. “She lied” said Hassan, when this was retailed to him. No

dancing girl has a husband. Never never – but they love, and she loves that man who

is married but has lived with her for six years.

When she had done her stunt, her place was taken by a bad looking, large,

white fleshed woman who looked as if she kept wanting to tuck up her feet under her

instead of sitting European-wise in a chair. She joined in a chorus with a gargle at the

end of which, her head dropped onto her shoulder and her eyes rolled. It was hideous

and duller than ever. Then she blew her nose for a long time and that is absolutely all.

We left and no doubt something livelier, or at least worse, took place, for one can’t

imagine any men paying for such a performance as that. It goes on till 1, too – we

were the only women there.

Well it cost 2/- all told for each of us, and to me extra - a cold that hurt through to my

back and made me take a lively interest in the exact position of my lungs. However, I

think it’s clearing up now, though I am still a lovely object with the loveliness

bestowed by my cold enhanced by the operation of a belated mosquito on my

forehead last night. I say belated, because here at Alexandra there is a tang in the air

and one can wear – I needed in my melancholy condition - thick things. Mosquito net

are not put down at this time of year here, tho they are still a few hours away in Cairo.

Leaving Cairo I felt rather inadequate for my first journey [alone?]. The

Rossmore House hall porter who came with me of course, is young and new to his job

so I was pestered with folk demanding baksheesh and had a horrible time. Here,

however, I was met by a trained if disagreeable porter, a Syrian who recited his

virtues to me exhaustingly, and today he put me through the customs, passport and

148

medical offices with efficiency and calm. So here I am on board waiting for the boat

to start and no doubt for myself to be truly miserable with seasickness. Last night a

gale blew up, but now the bay is calm and all may yet be well. Though I should hate it

to happen in Melbourne, I am glad here, there I no one to see me off – there is no

conversation to be made with kind but little known people. There seem only a few

first class passengers. I have a cabin to myself (by luck not management or money)

and I feel very calm and pleasant.

9th Dec. British School

Athens

Looking back, the last sentence is most ironical. Never have I had such a time!

As from Melbourne we rode out into a gale, in a smallish steamer. Such a gale as they

have, Captain says, about twice a year. My stewardess was more than kind – always

is, the captain says with English or American tourists - that and the cabin to myself

and fact that for most of the time the porthole was left open, these three were the only

mitigating circumstances in a trip that was so violent that this afternoon coming up in

a taxi-like boat I slipped my hand inside my stays as I felt that if I were jolted against

anything hard, my insides would perforate. Talk about in a minute paying for glad

life’s arrears. I did. I do.

I went into dinner on the Tuesday quite gaily and got into instant conversation

with a military man stationed in Constantinople; but I had to leave after the fish [?]

and did not see him again till I came on deck just before we arrived today. As things

are interesting there just now, I was, or rather am, disappointed. I was not in the

interval interested in anything.

For meals today I had some tinned pineapple, the thing to hold its job down,

and a mandarin as we arrived, so you may judge I felt pretty faintish when after a long

search for the Japanese legation, we reached this school. Cook’s man met me, rowed

me ashore and secured the taxi, then asked would I share it with a Japanese gentleman

who had also claimed his services. It was the only one left so I said yes, tho there was

no reduction in price. That, however, was cheap enough. It is half an hour’s train

journey here from Piraeus and the boat from the Abbasieh and the taxi and perquisite

no doubt required by Cook’s man, came to 10/- only. Imagine, while before the war,

twenty-five drachmae went to the Pound, now it takes between three and four

hundred.

Anyhow, I arrived here safely to find a Greek girl who spoke only Greek, and

a Mrs Woodward in possession - neither very desirous of making conversation with

me for four hours till dinner at eight. So I asked for tea and had some very weak and

scented and black bread and butter, served in my bedroom which sounds cheerless but

somehow isn’t. It is a large very clean room with an icy wind blowing into it from the

high mountains. It has an open wardrobe, a chest of drawers, basin and stand, a bed, a

towel rail and two chairs. No curtain, no carpet. Till the war it was a purely bachelor

establishment, but like many other such, has had to decline up (sic) the weaker sex to

make ends meet. What the rules are, what one pays, whether there is a bath or not, has

not become known to me. I shall pause in order to leave space for these – to me,

vitally interesting items.

149

Later. No rules except breakfast before 10am and breakfast alas consists of tea

and an egg and black bread and butter or jam or Hymettos honey may be bought and

there is a kettle on which one can make one’s own tea if preferred – mine shall be

preferred, a bit later. Everything is so cheap I fancy I’ll live here for less than 35/- a

week. There is a bath and a heater and one gets one’s hot water bag filled in the

kitchen every night. There is not much service here, a smiling Greek maid called

Marika, a sick mother, and a cook who comes in daily, apparently, do everything.

There are at present, seven people in the house and four or more away for a day or

two in Thessaly. Everyone is much interested in native sewing and it is a dreadful

catastrophe to bring home a bit that is a dud ie not recognizable by Mr Woodward and

Mr Welsh, as done by natives, Albanians from Jannina or Turkish – or whatnot but

just something “done” for the tourist. There are keen discussions whether the things

on the genuine bits are human beings or trees, but provided the work can be “placed’

and is not flagrantly ugly, everyone is satisfied at it having been bought.

As to the people, most of the names are so extraordinary I can’t get them. The

Assistant Director, Mr Woodward is a kind man with the oddest habit of turning his

head away from you as he speaks till his chin rests on his shoulder and (as) his speech

ends, at right angles to his attentive countenance. Mr Welsh seems bored at the sight

of me so I know nothing of him, but there is a lively boy just passing through and

allowed to stay here on the strength of some classics of his: a University girl who

must be older than she looks as she finished her course before the war, and is now

here to decide how she will specialise, her name is like Papius and then there is a

friendly couple, young, he an expert in ancient coins. Their name begins with Seltman

and I expect to be friendly with them both.

Now that’s all my news except that I can’t open one of my boxes and so can’t

get my things out – very sad as I am joyfully unpacking – it being now Sunday – and

getting my things into drawers instead of trunks (tin or wooden ones I mean).

I have sent no Xmas presents as it meant too much time at both ends for you

all and for me. So accept my warmest wishes instead and my love – and do keep on

writing – nothing should be lost now. Yours ever, Jess.

2.2.1 Notes:

1. Progress: The Argus 1 March 1923 interview reported that they reached Cairo on

16th

November ie nine days after Abu Simbel (at which Jessie reported the boat

did not stop). They may have spent a week touring places such as Philae, Aswan,

Luxor and Thebes before reaching Cairo. From this last letter it looks like they

went their separate ways from the last week in November, which gave Georgina 2

½ months before she reached Melbourne at the end of February. Consequently it is

apparent that she spent some time elsewhere before coming home to Melbourne

eg India and Ceylon, which were on the PO routes.

2. Political Situation: In regard to the situation in Cairo at the time of their visit

(and Jessie was already aware of difficulties, see letter …X) the following quotes

give a flavour of the atmosphere in the city at the time. It is wondered how this

150

affected their visit to the city, although being ‘European’ and female they may not

have experienced any problems.

“… in December 1921, the British authorities in Cairo imposed martial law

and once again deported [Saad] Zaghlul [popular revolutionary].

Demonstrations again led to violence. In deference to the growing nationalism

and at the suggestion of the High Commissioner, Lord Allenby, the UK

unilaterally declared Egyptian independence on 28 February 1922, abolishing

the protectorate and establishing an independent Kingdom of Egypt.”274

“Crisis Phase (March 15, 1922-July 5, 1923): … British troops remained in

the country following Egypt’s independence in order to protect British

interests, including the Suez Canal. Ahmed Faud, who became Sultan of

Egypt following the death of Sultan Hussein Kamil on October 9, 1917,

assumed the title of King Faud I on March 15, 1922. Prime Minister Abdel

Khaliq Sarwat Pasha resigned on November 29, 1922, and Muhammad

Tawfiq Nasim Pasha formed a government as prime minister on November 30,

1922. … King Faud I lifted martial law on July 5, 1923 (martial law had been

declared in 1914).”275

3. Dramatic Event, Nov. 1922: It would be extraordinary if Jessie hadn’t written

about the discovery of King Tutankhamun’s tomb, which happened on 5th

November, with the opening of the tomb site on 23rd

November when Lord

Carnavon arrived in Luxor, enabling Howard Cater to proceed. It was huge news

at the time eg.

“The discovery of King Tut's tomb in November 1922 created an obsession around the

world. Daily updates of the find were demanded. Masses of mail and telegrams

deluged Carter and his associates. Hundreds of tourists waited outside the tomb for a

peek. Hundreds more people tried to use their influential friends and acquaintances to

get a tour of the tomb causing a great hindrance to work in the tomb and endangering

the artifacts.”276

274

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_modern_Egypt 275

http://uca.edu/politicalscience/dadm-project/middle-eastnorth-africapersian-gulf-region/egypt-1922-

present/

276 http://history1900s.about.com/od/1920s/a/kingtut.htm

151

2.3. TRANSCRIPT OF OTHER WRITINGS IN THE DIARY The following is written on the last page and back cover of the diary:

Notes on journey from Nimule to Rejaf [repeated for some reason] by CVA Estent,

PWD [Public Works Department] Uganda November 1920.[ This is about the Safari

leg of the journey only]

Nimule - Mamur Rest House 20 minutes walk from steamer landing place

10.6 miles

Nimule to Assua 10.6 miles. 3 miles continous rise 1 ½ down hill both stony –then easy

slope to the Assue river 80 yards broad - a canoe but in the dry season fordable camp ½

mile beyond river water muddy – sheep chickens eggs can be got

І. Assua to Aju 5.4 miles, fair road with occasional gully camp not very good Main road

to Opari turns to the left. Shorter route goes straight on

Aju to Itu 4.5 miles road fair, camp fair

Itu to Kirrippi 4.9 miles rd. fair best camp on road The road from Opari to

Kapi Kap crosses at camp

Rejaf Rd is the centre one of the 3. sheep, chicken, eggs.

Π. Kirrippi to Muka 8.3 miles, the road very steep up and down and stony. Several dry

water courses. 1st 5 miles very hard going then good and on/ into Muka. The road from

Opare joins 1 mile before getting to Muka.

Ш. Muka to Gumbari 8.4 miles Road good to river Unca[?] which was dry but is

probably unfordable during high flood, 1.8 from camp. Camp good. Porters would not

leave before day light because of reported recent presence of lions.

ІV. Gumbari to Tombe Moussa 12.1 miles. Road good for about 6 ½ miles to River

Karpetta which was dry but can be unfordable. Road gets rougher after next 3 miles as it

nears camp which was good but water was may be scarce.

v.Tombe Moussa-Gadren Morbe 8.3 miles. Good road but weedy and thorny. Chief

Kiruloo Gadren speaks Swahili. Guinea fowl camp and water good.

VІ. Gadren Morbe to Fitia Legu 11 miles. Tselse bad road good River Gappa which can

be unfordable 1 ½ miles before reaching camp. Water good but may be scarce.

VΠ. Fitia Legu to Laro – road bad hilly thorny

VШ. Laro to Nymki bad hilly stony Khiye river to be forded.

152

ІҲ. Nymki to Kirbas (91.6) and Rejef ferry 94.2)

The following appears inside the front cardboard cover

[A list of books] The China in Transition (crossed out), The Problems of China by B Russell,

The Marches of Wessex (the history of England) JH Darton, Rosette and his circle G

Beerbohn, Frequented Ways by Marion Neubigen.

This is followed by a list of terms to use with staff, most Swahili or approximations of Swahili.

Carrier pagazi (chukua, carry in Swahili))

camp - kitus

candle – meskuma (mishumaa Swahili)

clean - to make clean (takasa (Safisha, Swahili)

chicken – faranya (Kuku, Swahili)

chop mall – ka(orer) te … (changa, Swahili)

cockroach - mende

cost (how much) – chiefralefe

The cook – mkishi (mpishi, Swahili)

On opposite page (ie un-numbered second page) is:

“Re Mustapha tho Muganda a policeman at Gondokoro – this was when the Lado Enclave

was under Uganda …of the Sudan he was welcomed vigorously by old friends at Rejaf.”

Also:

List of stations of Nile R between Rejaf and Khatoum (as per diary)

[Not copied out because they are mentioned in the diary]

On un-numbered page 3 there is a list:

Rossmore House [ie Cairo]

Washing List 17 November

2 cotton dresses

1 blouse (silk) 1 cotton blouse

1 silk petticoat

[…]

3 handkerchiefs

3 bodices

1 night dress

2 pairs knickers

1 singlet.

153

PART 3: PRESS AND OTHER COVERAGE OF

JOURNEY

The following news coverage and other items provide some information about

the Cape to Cairo journey (highlighted), although that coverage is not always

accurate . While the primary media focus was on the League of Nations meeting, the

unusual nature of the trip obviously also attracted its share of attention. The

coverage also shows that Jessie was very busy on return with dutifully reporting back

about the League across the country. It is interesting to see how active women’s

groups were at this time, including being interested in a variety of topics, including

relating to international issues. It is obvious too, from the nation-wide coverage and

the use of the same photo of Jessie, that a public relations exercise had been

organized, perhaps by the National Council of Women.

3.1 Press Coverage

3.1.1 Women’s World, the Melbourne Monthly, March 1922, 7. (Ref. Ridley,

p. 63)

“Dr Georgina Sweet and Miss Jessie Webb, the much beloved President of the

Lyceum Club, (are going) on a casual [sic] sort of tour through the wilds of Central

Africa, Rhodesia, Belgian Congo, the Tanganyika Territory, British East Africa,

Uganda and then onto Egypt and the civilized world sic, which they hope to visit at

the end of a year or two (!)”

3.1.2 Melbourne Argus, 1 March 1923

http://nla.gov.au/news-articles1879564

“Dr Georgina Sweet’s Travels

After an absence of nearly twelve months, during which she travelled through some of

the most interesting parts of Africa, Dr Georgina Sweet, associate professor of

zoology, returned yesterday on the Narkunda. Dr Sweet was accompanied on her tour

by Miss Jessie M [sic] Webb, MA., and she describes their experiences as

wonderfully interesting, though far from comfortable. They landed in Capetown on

April 15, spending six weeks in South Africa, and en route for Cairo, which they

reached on November 16, they visited Rhodesia, the Belgian Congo, the British

Mandate area of Tanganyika Territory, Zanzibar, Kenya Colony, and the Uganda

Protectorate, remaining not less than three weeks in each place. Their journey down

the Nile to Cairo was not the least interesting part of the tour.

‘We were received everywhere’, said Dr Sweet yesterday, ‘with the utmost kindness’.

As on other occasions, I come back impressed with the genial courtesy and true

hospitality of members of our race and most other nations in those distant places,

towards the visitor who displays a sympathetic interest and tries to understand their

condition. Although our time was so short, we made the most of our opportunities of

studying the various kinds of government, problems of administration, native

154

development, the potency of human and animals diseases in delaying progress, in

which I was especially interested; and of course the wonderful scenery.’

Dr Sweet spoke of the abounding problems which faced the Government of South

African Union, with its white and coloured peoples; of the spontaneous devotion of

the British in Rhodesia to the mother country; of the Belgian Congo with its

wonderful resources and rapid development, a bit of ‘Continental Europe in speech at

least, in the heart of Africa’, and where the residents, Belgian, British, Greek and

Scandanavian, extended to them the greatest courtesy. She referred with admiration to

the work which is being done by the handful of British officials in the mandated

Tanganyika area in the face of financial and other difficulties, and to the equally fine

services to the Empire of the men stationed in Kenya Colony, Uganda ‘the Pearl of

Africa’, and the Sudan. The travellers found Egypt in the throes of a difficult political

situation, mingled with some excitement over the discovery of King Tutankhmun’s

tomb.

Dr Sweet said she was very interested to see the extent to which Australian trees were

being grown in Africa. In the South and in Kenya there were great forests grown for

timber and for shade, and of acacias for bark and timber.

Grevillea was abundant, especially Grevillea robusta (our silky oak), which was often

grown freely on roadsides and in coffee plantations as an ornamental shade tree.

Miss Webb, who is lecturer in ancient and early British history in the Melbourne

University, left Dr Sweet in Africa to go on to Athens, where she has been residing at

the British School of Archaeology.”

3.1.3 Melbourne Argus, 20 April 1923

http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-articles1891770

“New Professor’s Humour” - article includes a mention of “After the dinner Dr

Georgina Sweet gave a short lantern lecture in the University Clubhouse, on her

African tour.”

3.1.4 Wyvern (Queen’s College 1.1.1923, 39.

(Ref. Ridley, p 65)

Melbourne University Foundation Day (and at the Science Club) - A slide talk, “Three

thousand miles by the Nile”. Location of slides not known.

3.1.5 Brisbane Courier, Tuesday 24 July 1923

http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article20655713

“A distinguished record lies[?] to the credit of Miss Jessie Stobo Watson Webb, M.A.

who has accepted the position of Australia’s woman delegate to the League of Nations

Assembly. Throughout her scholastic career Miss Webb showed her exceptional

ability, having taken first class honours in history, political economy, logic and

philosophy. Since her student days Miss Webb has occupied the position of senior

155

lecturer in history to Melbourne University, and throughout the period of her

connection with the University she has also taken a leading position in public work. In

1922, with Dr Georgina Sweet, Miss Webb made the long journey from the Cape to

Cairo. Since then she has been in Athens, where she has been engaged with the British

School of Archaeology in exploring and excavating in ancient Greece.”

3.1.6 Melbourne University Magazine, August 1923, 130 (Ref. Ridley, p 65)

Ridley notes that it reveals only that they were accompanied by thirty five porters.

3.1.7 The Register, Adelaide, 12 Feb 1924

http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/57470045

“TO REPRESENT AUSTRALIA

Miss Jessie Webb

Miss Jessie Webb, M.A., lecturer in History at the Mebourne University will shortly

return to Australia by the RMS Maloja. Miss Webb is the woman delegate chosen by

the Federal Government to represent Australia at the League of Nations Assembly at

Geneva in 1923. A committee formed of representatives from the National Council of

Women and the League of Nations Union of South Australia, has arranged with Miss

Webb to give an address on her experiences at Geneva in Adelaide on Monday

February 20th

in the institute lecture room, North Terrace. This is the first opportunity

that the public of Adelaide has had of hearing first-hand news from the 1923

Assembly….This address should be of immense interest to the rest of all citizens, men

and women alike, but the women’s associations are particularly asked to urge their

members to attend to show their appreciation of the Government’s action in

appointing a woman to take part in this great work for Australia. Arrangements are

also being made in Western Australia for Miss Webb to speak in Perth.”

The article is accompanied by the graduate photo of Jessie (see p. 12).

3.1.8 Daily New Perth, 21 Feb. 1924

http://nga.gov.au/nla.news-article780638323

“VISIT OF MISS JESSIE WEBB

A TALK TO WOMEN.

(By 'Franziska.')

Miss Jessie Webb, who was an Australian delegate at the League of Nations

Conference recently held at Geneva, was yesterday, with her hostess (Mrs. W.

Murdoch), present at morning tea, and an informal conference arranged in her honour

by the State executive committee of the Women's Service Guild, at their headquarters

in Pier-street. The State president of the Women's Service Guild (Mrs. McDonald), in

the course of a charming little speech, said that they were glad to have Miss Webb

with them, and extended a welcome to her on behalf of all members. Mrs. McDonald

aptly pointed out that getting into touch with feminine interstate visitors in this way

helped to link up Australian womanhood to mutual advantage.

156

A few remarks were then made by the three delegates who went' from Western

Australia to the Rome Conference each of whom found time while in Italy to visit the

headquarters at Geneva, of the League of Nations Union. In the course of a brief, but

interesting talk, given by her, Miss Webb said that she had been informed by the

British Overseas Committee of the international Suffrage Alliance, London, that

arrangements were being made for the erection of a pavilion at the Empire Exhibition.

She had met several members of that organisation, and was greatly impressed with the

work they were doing.

The visitor answered in an illuminating fashion questions regarding mandated

territories, and the Commission of Inquiry on the traffic in women and children. She

also outlined several suggestions concerning future appointments of delegates from

Australia to the League of Nations assemblies, and referred to the important fact that

the alternate or substitute delegate - which position she herself had occupied - really

has practically the same status and equal responsibility, with a full delegate.

A number of impressions of Miss Webb's tour through Africa were given in such

vividly descriptive terms as to make them of absorbing: interest to her hearers.

Altogether those present felt that they had spent a very pleasant and instructive

morning.”

3.1.9 Sydney Morning Herald, 22 Feb. 1924

http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article16123946

“LEAGUE OF NATIONS

DELEGATE RETURNS

LESSONS FROM CORFU

Miss Jessie Webb, Lecturer in History at the University of Melbourne, has returned to

Australia after an absence of two years, during which she represented Australia at the

fourth Assembly of the League of Nations. When she left Australia in March 1922,

she was accompanied by Dr Georgina Sweet on a tour of Africa, where Dr Sweet,

who is a well-known parasitologist, desired to study certain diseases affecting lower

animals. They traversed Belgian territory, the territory of Tanganyika, which was

formerly German East Africa, Zanzibar, Kenya Colony, Uganda and made a 90-mile

long trek along the Nile Valley with the aid of 38 native carriers. Tanganyika, they

found, had suffered a tremendous set-back through the war, and, according to local

opinion, was not likely to recover for 20 years. The natives proved trustworthy during

their travels, and they suffered none of the misadventures associated with the wilds of

Africa.

Miss Webb left Dr Sweet at Alexandria and embarked for Athens where she was

received with kindness. The British were the most popular of the foreigners. She was

in Greece when asked to attend the Assembly of the League of Nations. The

Assembly soon after … adjoined to give the Council of the League a freer hand in

dealing with the difficult and dangerous situation caused by Mussolini’s seizure of

Corfu. The opinion was widely expressed that if Mussolini were top do this kind of

thing with impunity no small nation would have any guarantee in the League, and

their delegates might as well pack their trunks. They were … most impressed with the

moderation and self-restraint of M. Politis, the Greek envoy. She thought that the

157

League had not failed at that moment of test. The crisis had revealed certain

weaknesses in the League for which remedies ought to be sought, but had there been

no League there would have been no evacuation of Corfu and if there had been no

evacuation of Corfu it was hard to believe that there would not have been another

European war.”

3.1.10 The Advertiser, Adelaide, 28 Feb 1924 (extract only, with paragraphs

inserted) http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article73406927

“MISS JESSIE WEBB

LECTURER AND EXPLORER

Appearances are often more or less deceptive, and no one meeting the fair and fragile

looking Miss Jessie Webb who is on a visit to Adelaide, would imagine she had,

among other strenuous things, trekked across Africa, from the Cape to Cairo.

A lecturer in history at Melbourne University, she was granted two year’s leave, and

accompanied Dr. Georgina Sweet, also of Melbourne, on an exploration trip. Dr.

Sweet returned last year, but after the journey to Cairo from Cape Town Miss Webb

parted company with her friend and went to Greece, and thence to Constantinople.

While she was there she received a cable message appointing her one of the

Australian representatives at the Genera Conference of the League of Nations. Miss

Webb arrived there on September 1 and the conference debated for a month. She was

a substitute delegate on all the committees.

The conference was conducted in French and English. Mm Webb informed a

representative of 'The Advertiser' on Wednesday that she was particularly struck by

the earnestness of a Norwegian representative Miss Jeffe, who made a strong appeal

for help for the Armenian women who were captured by the Turks and are in

captivity. Although her grant from the League of Nations was very small, this

Norwegian lady has rescued over 300 Armenian women already, and she has made a

big appeal to the women of every nation for help. Miss Webb is going to try to

interest Australian women in the project.

After Miss Webb parted with Dr. Sweet she went to Crete, where there is great

interest in the excavations being conducted under the supervision of Sir Arthur Evans,

which were begun in 1900.' Sir Arthur had always maintained that Homer’s

description of Greece was founded upon fact, and not legend. He has now excavated

the Palace of Knossos in Eastern Crete, where the friezes dating back 3000 years B.C.

are in a wonderful state of preservation, depicting blue monkeys and black men. In

addition some Cretan seals were found beautifully engraved with pre-Greek scenes.

Pottery and other things were discovered intact. In the township of BoloWebb met

with the soup kitchen provided by the Save the Children Fund of Adelaide [?]. This

was reported to be the best of its kind in Greece.

Miss Webb said, in speaking of the trek across Africa, that people always expressed

surprise that the journey was for the most part by train and boat. Of course, floating

on the Congo was not the most pleasant form of traveling. She recalled an experience

when a barge was struck on a dark night, and the passengers had to clamber out and

158

be carried ashore on the backs of the black men. They had quite a retinue— thirty men

to carry luggage — but these were replaced from time to time.277

A Reception. On Wednesday afternoon the Lady Mayoress (Mrs. C. R. J. Glover)

entertained the president and members of the National Council of Women and wives

of the aldermen and counselors of the City Council at afternoon tea in her charming

reception-room at the Town Hall to meet Miss Webb, who leaves to-day for

Melbourne ...”

3.1.11 Barrier Miner (Broken Hill), 8 March 1924

http://nla.gov.au/news-article45639324

“MISS JESSIE WEBB, M.A.

Australia’s woman representative at the League of Nations Assembly in Geneva who

arrived in Adelaide last Tuesday.”

[with accompanying photo, same one as used in other press coverage and rather

curiously appearing in the Sports Edition!]

3.1.12 The Brisbane Courier, 7th

June, 1924,

http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article20745476

“Miss Jessie Webb Entertained”

Article about Jessie being guest of honour at a reception held at the Lyceum Club for

women’s organizations to hear about the League of Nations meeting. Jessie also spoke

about the importance of women’s organizations and the need to understand world

events. She mentioned, among other things, about meeting women candidates for

Parliament and those elected (nothing about the Cape to Cairo journey).

3.1.13 Brisbane Courier, 5 Oct. 1925 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article20965830

“Distinguished Visitors Entertained

[This article was about a social event at the Lyceum Club in Brisbane with Georgie

visiting. The focus of the article was on scholarships for women but there is a brief

mention of the Cape to Cairo trip]

“… Alisa Paterson, in her reply, referred to the fact that Dr Sweet and Miss Jessie

Webb, M.A. had been the first women to undertake the complete over-land journey

through Africa from the Cape to Cairo …”

3.1.14 Brisbane Courier, 23 Nov. 1932

http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article22022420

277

Two stories are mixed up here ie travelling on the Congo river and the safari from Nimule in

southern Sudan. Also, this story is a little strange because the boats tied up at night because of the

dangers of sandbanks and other possible obstacles. But the incident is not mentioned in the letters

contained in this current record.

159

Southern Stations Tomorrow, [Radio Programmes]

3AR Melbourne (492 Mitres).-8.0 A travel talk by Miss Jessie Webb; [no other

details]

3.1.15 Papers on Various Australian Women, Rapke, Julia, paper on Georgina

Sweet, nd (c1937), NLA MS 842

Extracts only, as relates to the Cape to Cairo journey, with paragraph breaks and a

couple of commas inserted:

P7. “The death of her father was a heartbreaking blow to her, coming as it did soon

after losing her mother and much loved younger sister, Dr Elizabeth Mary Sweet. This

triple bereavement robbed her of her three nearest and dearest in the short space of

sixteen months.”

Pp.16-18. “ … Often, perhaps always one should say, she is tired, but she never

succumbs and is quite philosophical about it. “I was born tired” she will tell you. And

in truth she was. Up till the age of eleven she was very delicate, has suffered from ill-

health more or less throughout her life. Thanks to sound organs and an extremely wiry

constitution, helped also by good food, right living and an intelligent application of

medical, dental and ophthalmic science she has largely managed to overcome her

physical disabilities. When, as a girl, she would tell her mother how completely tired

she was, her wise parent would say “no, you are not tired, Just relax a little and soon

you will be able to carry on again.” There was no pampering: instead she was taught a

practical acceptance and the principle – what cannot be cured must be endured. 278

…

She would close her eyes, sit back and relax completely for a little time and then go

on. It is this extraordinary quality of doggedness or “stick-at-it-ness (her phrase, not

mine) that is especially notable about her. It is one which is as unique as it is

individual and has certainly had great bearing on the success of her life’s work.

She was a serious-minded little girl and even when quite young was never allowed to

read fairy stories or children’s novels. She was brought up on Livingstone, Stanley,

Drake and Jules Verne. It was Verne’s stories that whetted her imagination in

childhood –for travel and romance. She longed especially to see Africa and the

Victoria Nyanza Falls. When the opportunity to visit Africa really came many years

afterwards her friends thought she was crazy. She herself began to wonder if indeed

she had wanted it all that time or was it only a fiction of her childhood that she had

imagined. But one day, rummaging among some old letters, she came across one she

had written to her father from Lorne when she was only nine years old and in it she

declared she must see Africa before she died! She gleefully showed it to her

concerned friends who, when the time came for her to set out on her African travels

with Miss Jessie Webb, refused even to go and see her off.

So in 1922 the African dream became a reality and at last she gazed upon the majesty

of the Falls. Several weeks were spent in the S. African Union, in Rhodesia, travelling

278

These appear to be symptoms of having had rheumatic fever as a child, and related to the ‘neuralgia’

Jessie reported Georgie to be suffering at times on the journey.

160

up the Congo, in Tanganyika Territory and in Kenya. At the end of a year she was

home.” …

3.1.16 Australian Women’s Digest, Jan. 1946279

Extract from Obituary of Georgina Sweet by Kathleen Sherrard. “Soon after the first world war, she planned an adventurous journey, no less than from the Cape to

Cairo, over a great part of which it was necessary to be carried by native porters. She persuaded

Jessie Webb, lecturer in Ancient History at the Melbourne University, to go with her, thereby

securing the most delightful company in the world. With the simplicity which was natural to her,

Georgina Sweet enjoyed as much as anyone the burlesque of this trip acted by junior women staff

members as much as anyone the burlesque of this trip staff members at a women students’ party

when she returned to Melbourne. To give the skit a correct atmosphere she lent the chair she had

actually been carried in across Africa, together with the collapsible rubber bath, and supplied

stories of Mustapha, the head porter on the trek, and Erissa the cook, for the embellishment of the

doggerel “libretto”.

279

This version is not accurate in a number of respects.

161

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Clarson, G., Eat My Dust, Early Women Motorists, JH Publ., 2008

Clarson, G., ‘Anderson, Elizabeth Foley (1897-1926)’, ADB, ANU.

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