THE EUROPEAN SETTLERS 
*73 
plantation, but at eleven o’clock I met him coming back to breakfast (we have an early 
breakfast at six and a big breakfast at eleven—no luncheon) an hour before the usual 
time. I thought he looked awfully queer. There was a grey look about his face and he 
was very dark about the eyes. He told me he felt a frightful pain in his back and was 
very cold. Instead of coming to breakfast he went to bed. Presently his boy came down 
to tell us that ‘ Master was very bad.’ Old McClear went up and found that his son had 
got the ‘ black-water ’ fever. He vomited steadily all that day, and at night-fall was as 
yellow as a guinea, besides being dreadfully weak. Of course we had the doctor over as 
soon as possible, but in this disease doctors at present can do very little. Quinine is of 
no avail and all that you can aim at is keeping up the patient’s strength. Young McClear 
was smartly purged and then given champagne and water to drink, and he went on 
vomiting all night and the greater part of next day. The doctor then injected morphia 
into his arm and this stopped the vomiting and gave him a little sleep. After that he 
managed to keep down some chicken broth, and the third and fourth days he mended. 
In six days he was seemingly all right, though a little weak, and on the seventh day he 
was actually up and about, and his skin had almost regained its normal colour. 
“ After a go of black-water fever it is always better to leave the country for a change 
if you can, but you ought not to hurry away too soon lest the fatigues of the journey 
should bring on a relapse, and therefore McClear will wait till April and then run down 
to Natal and back for a trip. Many men who come to this country never get black-water 
fever, either because they take great care of themselves or because the germs which cause 
the disease by attacking the red-blood corpuscles cannot get the mastery over their 
systems, but where a man finds himself to be subject to attacks of this disease I should 
advise him to quit: Central Africa is not for him.” 
“ Pazulu, May 2nd. 
“ Our rainy season came to an end a couple of weeks ago and I want to lose no time 
about building my house as a large quantity of bricks will have to be made during this 
dry season. I have hired some native brickmakers from Blantyre. They will be able 
to make about 1,000 bricks a day. I shall need about 45,000 bricks for my house. I 
have been cutting timber on McClear’s land by arrangement, for joists and beams. The 
doors, match-board skirting, &c., I shall buy at one of the stores in Blantyre, where I 
shall also get corrugated iron for the roof and the timber for the inner ceiling, without 
which the bare iron would be a great deal too hot in the summer and too cold in the 
winter. I shall take care that all the rooms have fire-places. I cannot tell you how 
necessary fires are here for health and comfort. Fortunately we have any quantity of 
fire-wood. As I am trying hard to keep within my thousand pounds I shall not build a 
house of more than three rooms with a nice large verandah, and a portion of the 
verandah will be cut off as a bath-room and communicate with the bed-room by a door. 
“ The other two rooms will be respectively dining-room and office in one, and private 
sitting-room. I shall also run up a small brick store with a strong roof and a strong 
door (to prevent thieving). My kitchen will be wattle and daub with a thatched roof 
and a brick chimney and will stand at a little distance from the house connected with it 
by a covered way. Another corner of the verandah beside the bath-room will be 
enclosed as a pantry and private store-room for provisions. In building my house I am 
strongly cautioned to avoid “a through draught." The principle on which the oldest 
planters’ houses were built was a very unhealthy one. The front door opened into a 
kind of hall which was used as a dining-room, and immediately opposite the front door 
was a back door by which the food was brought in to the table. The result was that 
persons sitting at the table sat in a draught, and to sit in a draught in this country or to 
get a chill in any way is the surest cause of fever. 
“ My verandah will be paved with tiles which I can obtain in Blantyre from the men 
who make them. The foundations of the house will be brick, over which I shall put a 
good layer of cement to stop any nonsense on the part of white ants, though on my 
