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Letter ReferenceMacFarlane-Muirhead/18
ArchiveMacFarlane Collection
Epistolary TypeLetter
Letter Date8 May 1906
Address FromHanover, Northern Cape
Address To
Who ToRobert Franklin ('Bob') Muirhead
Other Versions
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Legend
The Project is grateful to Mrs Hazel MacFarlane for kindly allowing us to transcribe this Olive Schreiner letter to Bob Muirhead, which is part of the MacFarlane family collection of Muirhead Papers, Special Collections, University of Glasgow Library. This letter is written on printed headed notepaper, with the heading crossed through.
1Cronwright-Schreiner & Meyer
2Law and Estate Agents.
3Auctioneers, &c,
4Hanover and De Aar
5
6Cronwright-Schreiner,
7Law, Estate and General Agent
8
9Harold L. Meyer, J.P.,
10Attorney and Notary.
11Telegrams: "Schreiner"

12
13Hanover,
14Cape Colony
15
16May 8th 1906
17
18Dear Bob
19
20It’s such a long time since I had any news of you direct or indirect.
21 I hope all has gone well with the wife & that you & she are richer by
22the possession of another little one. Please write just a note & tell
23me how it goes with you.
24
25With me all is going well. My meerkats are flourishing. I have six now!
26
27Next month Cron is going down to Parliament to Cape Town, & I am going
28with him. But just now he is away at de Aar seeing after his business
29there, for ten days.
30
31He has sold his business there ^here^ Bye here, & we are going to live
32at de Aar. Its a Railway Camp about 30 miles from this, all dust &
33flies & tin & rag shanties & little brick houses, & awful heat in
34summer. There are about 3000 inhabitants, mostly the lowest class of
35coloured folk, & the rest of the population railway men, & of course
36Jews, & a few Railway-officials. We are going to build a little
37cottage about half a mile out of the camp, where there isisn’t so
38much dust, & flies & other things; but have first to sink a well to
39find water before we can begin to build, & whether we shall find it
40where we want is doubtful. So things are rather mentaly unsettled with
41us just now.
42
43What a strange thing life is & how it leads us hither & thither. If
44any one had told me 12 years ago I should ever go & live at de Aar I
45should have told him he was mad. One advantage about the place is that
46three railway lines converge there, so one may have a chance of seeing
47ones friends as they move up & down the country which one hasn’t here.
48
49What is really filling all my thoughts is Natal, & the Natives, on
50whom they are trying to force war. But I can’t write about it.
51
52^Good bye. I hope it goes well with the wife & the children & the old
53mother & the old Bob.^
54Olive
55