The post goes out this
evening, and the hot wind is blowing, so I can only write to you,
and a line to my mother. I feel really better now. I think the
constant eating of grapes has done me much good.
The Dutch cart-owner was so extortionate, that I am going to wait a
few days, and write to my dear Malay to come up and drive me back.
It is better than having to fight the Dutch monopolist in every
village, and getting drunken drivers and bad carts after all. I
shall go round all the same. The weather has been beautiful; to-
day there is a wind, which comes about two or three times in the
year: it is not depressing, but hot, and a bore, because one must
shut every window or be stifled with dust.
The people are burning the veld all about, and the lurid smoke by
day and flaming hill-sides by night are very striking. The ashes
of the Bosh serve as manure for the young grass, which will sprout
in the autumn rains. Such nights! Such a moon! I walk out after
dark when it is mild and clear, and can read any print by the
moonlight, and see the distant landscape as well as by day.
Old Klein has just sent me a haunch of bok, and the skin and hoofs,
which are pretty.
