1 c/o Mrs Kriel
2 Registered letter
3 Beaufort West
4 July 17 / 00
5
6 Dear Friend
7
8 Thank you very much. I would like a room at the Old Man’s Home much
9better than at the White House, & if it were possible to get one with
10a fire place & facing the sun I should perhaps be able to stay for a
11long time.
12
13 I hired one year an empty room, in Grave street with a fire place &
14two windows; moved in a bed & chair & had a box for a washing stand, &
15I spent four months there without having asthma by keeping up good fires
16night & day. It was the pleasantest time I ever spent in Cape Town. I
17used to make my own breakfast & tea in a little kettle & pan & go out
18to dinner at a caffe. If I could get a room with a fire place & sun I
19believed I’d be able to stay for months.
20
21 Cron says he will be staying down in Cape Town till he goes up to
22Johannesburg, but in the letter I got yesterday he seems to think he
23will only have to wait two or three weeks at most. It’s curious how
24little in England they realize the state of affairs here. I don’t
25believe any one will get back to Johannesburg till after Xmas.
26
27 Your meeting at Worcester went off splendidly I hope.
28
29 I’ve been very unfit since I came back and not able to write a word,
30but its more anxiety & ^uncertainty that prevents my writing & thinking.
31 This wandering uncertain homeless life isn’t compatable with good
32literary work.
33
34Olive^
35
36 PS If I come it will be next Thursday.
37
38 Mrs Kriel is dangerously ^very^ ill, will unreadable & I don’t like
39keeping them out of their nice room so I will have to leave this on
40Monday Wednesday when my ?post en month here ends. I can’t go into
41the back rooms where there is no sun as I should have bad asthma at
42once, so if I can’t get another room in a boarding house here I
43shall have to go to Cape Town. Its ?very terrible to have no where to go
44Beaufort is filled with strangers now, principally Russian Jews who
45have been stopped here trying to get up to Johannesburg not a day
46passes, but they come here looking for rooms, & it very hard to get a
47place in Beaufort West of any kind.
48
49 Good bye
50 Olive
51
52 There must be two beds in the room as Cron may want to come & stay in
53Town. Or could I get a second little room for him?
54
55 ^Go & see Cron if he comes. Don’t say a word about his going to
56Johannesburg. His address will be care Mrs Cronwright Mowbray. But
57better still ask him to come & see you. You will be able to talk much
58more freely than at his mother’s.^
59
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