Olive Schreiner Letters Online

Letter Reference	Olive Schreiner BC16/Box2/Fold4/1901/1
Archive	University of Cape Town, Manuscripts & Archives, Cape Town
Epistolary Type	Letter
Letter Date	Thursday January 1901
Address From	Hanover, Northern Cape
Address To
Who To	Betty Molteno
Other Versions

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, January 1901, 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 month and year have been written on this letter in an unknown hand. Schreiner was resident in Hanover from September 1900 to October 1907, after 1902 with visits, sometimes fairly lengthy, elsewhere. The name of the addressee is indicated by salutation.

1:  Dear Friend
2: 
3:  I was very glad to get your letter, though letterwriting does not seem
4:  to be worth much now a days The commando as you will have seen from
5:  the papers, is said to have past through the south of Middle bu
6:  Hanover district & now to be between Middelberg & Graaff Reinet. They
7:  visited some farms ^Dutch & English^ in this district, but only
8:  commandeered a couple of horses, & did no harm to any one. It We have
9:  a lot of soldiers here defending the town, Brabant’s Horse, I think.
10:  not unreadable so
11: 
12:  Two trains have been taken near Naauport by the Boers. One I The Boer
13:  commandent when the one train was taken came up to the woman
14:  passengers & assured them they were quite safe that there was nothing
15:  to fear, & gave one lady some brandy & water in his mug, who was
16:  fainting & crying out with excitement. He then went round & gave
17:  several of the wounded English soldiers brandy & water, with his own
18:  hand. They only burnt the goods trucks & disarmed the soldiers & let
19:  the passengers come on. Some one who came from Phillips town when the
20:  commando was there says it was a very curious thing to hear the
21:  commando morning & evening singing psalms in the koppjes. There was a
22:  drizzling rain, & through the mist you could hear them singing among
23:  the rocks. They are a strange people these, how little the world
24:  understands them? People know them very little if they suppose they
25:  are going to take revenge for the house burning & destruction in the
26:  Republics. It is curious to hear how kindly they talk of these
27:  soldiers here. One woman said to me yesterday, "I pray to God if the
28:  commando ever comes, & there is any fighting here, that none of these
29:  poor English soldiers get killed. I hope the commando will just say
30:  "Hands up," & so no one will be hurt." I have never yet heard a word
31:  of bitterness from any soul here with regard to soldiers, but they
32:  feel very bitter with regard to the civil authorities who have brought
33:  martial law here, & are doing all they can to embitter their lives.
34: 
35:  Please send this letter Cron, at once. He doesn’t seem to get my
36:  letters to him. I am so very glad he is with his mother in Cape Town &
37:  so glad you & Miss Greene are not here. If Miss Hobhouse came up she
38:  would be all right, the jingoes would not dare to do anything to her.
39:  But I doubt much whether Milner will give her a pass ^: I have no fear
40:  of the English soldiers nor of the Boers.^
41: 
42:  Good bye dear.
43:  Yours ever
44:  Olive
45: 
46: 
47: 

Notation
Schreiner's comment about never receiving letters from Cronwright-Schreiner was passed on by Betty Molteno, with his response to Molteno, mis-dated 5 January 1900 (it was January 1901), as follows:

‘Private
‘...Thank you for Olive’s note of the 2nd, which I now return. She is wrong in stating that I’ll I “seem never to get” her letters. I hear from her by every train that comes down ^(practically every day)^ and I write to her daily and always particularly acknowledge the receipt of each ^letter^. ^As^ she gets my letters quite regularly, I can’t understand how she comes to the conclusion that I “never seem to get her” letters. I wish she could be got to some quiet place. It is not good for her to be there. But what can one do under the present horrible conditions? She really ought to be out of the country, in Italy for instance: but there’s the sea journey which I fear she might not be able to stand, as she seems very much run down. I have asked her to see a Dr there. If she is really ill & can get his certificate, the authorities may let her go away or let me up to take her away.’