THE EUROPEAN SETTLERS 
171 
of the rainy season I expect. We had a smoking concert in the Court House which 
was lent to us for the occasion, and the missionaries got up a big bazaar in aid of their 
school-house, and afterwards a lot of us were entertained at the Manse by the senior 
missionary where we heard some really good music. You have no idea what a pretty 
place the Manse is. It is rather a rambling house with a low thatched roof, but all the 
rooms open on to the verandahs with glass doors and plenty of windows so that they are 
very light inside though shielded from the sun. 
******** 
“There is a fairly good club here with lots of newspapers. I belong to the club and 
get a bedroom there whenever I come into Blantyre. I cannot say I think much of the 
hotels. Perhaps when more Europeans come to the country it will be worth while 
building a good place to receive them where a check will be set on the unlimited 
consumption of whisky, which at present tends to a good deal of noise and brawling 
of a not very creditable kind. Whisky is the curse of this country as far as Europeans 
are concerned, and is the cause of more than half the sickness. 
“ One of the chief drawbacks to this place, after all, is the lack of news. Blantyre 
is a hot-bed of gossip and rumours simply because it has no daily newspaper. There 
are no Reuter’s telegrams to read at the club every day because we are not in direct 
telegraph communication with the outer world. The mails arrive with much uncertainty; 
this is partly owing to the irregular way in which the ocean-going steamers call at Chinde. 
There are supposed to be two mails from Europe landed at Chinde in the month, but 
sometimes they both come together and then there is a month’s interval before another 
mail arrives; or when the mail is landed at Chinde there may be no steamer ready to 
start up-river with it. Again, in the dry season the steamers may stick on a sandbank 
before they reach Chironro, and then the mails have to be sent overland to Blantyre, but 
the mail-carriers may have to ford flooded rivers, or they may be scared by a lion, so the 
time they take varies from two and a' half to five days. Usually our letters and papers 
from England are six to seven weeks old when they reach us and I suppose my letters 
take the same time to reach you. Yet it is wonderful how much up to date people are 
here in information. It is astonishing what a lot everybody reads, and what heaps 
of newspapers and magazines are taken in. The Administration has started a lending 
library with a very decent collection of books, and although this is supposed to be 
primarily for Administration officials outsiders may by permission be allowed to join. 
We have a Planters’ Association and Chamber of Commerce. 
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“ The best fun I think is shooting. Game near Blantyre is getting scarce though 
there are heaps of lions and leopards, but it is so difficult to see them in the long grass 
and thick bush. What I enjoy, however, is going from a Saturday to Monday towards 
a mountain called Chiradzulu, and along the river Namasi. We always give our labourers 
on the plantations a Saturday half-holiday, and I can generally trust the capitaos to see 
that the men do a fair amount of work in the Saturday morning, so that I can sometimes 
get away on the Friday night with a companion or two. We take tent, beds, folding 
chairs and table, a few pots and pans and a basket of provisions. One of the chaps who 
generally comes with me brings his cook with him, a native boy trained at the Mission 
and not half a bad cook either. We usually ride out on our ponies as far as the 
Administration station on the Namasi river, as there is a good road there. Here we 
leave the nags under shelter and then strike off into the bush. Of course the rains are 
now on us and this sort of thing is not so pleasant in wet weather, but it was very jolly 
at the end of the dry season when the dense grass and bush were burnt, after the bush 
fires, and one could get about easily and see the game. We generally chose a place by 
the banks of a stream with plenty of shade, for our camp. The next day we would walk 
something like twenty miles in the course of our shooting, and although our luck varied 
