Olive Schreiner Letters Online

Letter Reference	Olive Schreiner BC16/Box1/Fold3/1896/24
Archive	University of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	Wednesday 20 August 1896
Address From	Coles Hotel, Kowie River (Port Alfred), Eastern Cape
Address To
Who To	Betty Molteno
Other Versions	Rive 1987: 288-9

The manuscript of this letter by Olive Schreiner belongs to the Archive referenced above; its ownership of the original should be acknowledged by referencing the letter as indicated: Copyright transcription: © Olive Schreiner Letters Project. This transcription can be freely used as long as copyright is acknowledged and it is referenced using the following citation: ‘Olive Schreiner to Betty Molteno, 20 August 1896, UCT Manuscripts & Archives, Olive Schreiner Letters Project transcription’. Please also supply letter line numbers for specific quotations.

Legend
The Project is grateful to Manuscripts and Archives, University of Cape Town, for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter, which is part of its Manuscripts and Archives Collections. The date has been written on this letter in an unknown hand.

1:  ^Coles Hotel^
2:  The Kowie
3:  Wednesday
4: 
5:  Dear Friend,
6: 
7:  I’ve just got your note. We have had a most splendid ten days we
8:  here. Our movements are not certain. If we knew you were coming we
9:  Can’t you come next week for a couple of days We shall unless I
10:  should get asthma stay here till the end of this unreadable month
11:  leaving here on the 31st for Webbers farm & then for home. We are
12:  hoping Mr Lloyd may come here next week for a couple of days.
13: 
14:  The first four days we were here we did nothing but bathe & walk about
15:  bare foot on the sand, but the other morning I woke, & as I opened my
16:  eyes there was an allegory full fledged in my mind! A sort of allegory
17:  story about Matabele land. So I’ve been writing hard ever since. I
18:  shall get it copied out & sent off to England by Saturday I hope, &
19:  then I will bathe all day again. Oh I do wish you & Miss Greene could
20:  come. I am very anxious to get a place for a splendid young Englishman
21:  on a farm – a real hard worker though unreadable ^a gentleman.^ He
22:  doesn’t want any pay. Do you think your brother
23: 
24:  ^at Stormberg might want him if I wrote about him? Cron says he would
25:  be glad to have him if we were on the farm that he’s of a really
26:  good sort. I am wonderfully better. It would do you both good to come
27:  Cron sends his love. We brought Mill with us, & he will try to swim
28:  out into the big breakers. ^
29: 
30:  Yours
31:  Olive
32: 
33: 
34: 

Notation
The 'sort of allegory' referred to is Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland. Rive's (1987) version of this letter omits part of it.