It is definitely settled that I go to Jo’burg tomorrow. Race urges me to do so. Things are getting unpleasant there, by all I hear, but I might as well go before they get worse. I dare say I shall be shot by a striker, anyway. Mrs. Blair was to have accompanied me, but at the last minute she changed her mind and decided to stay on at the falls. It seems as though she couldn’t bear to take her eyes off Race. She came to me tonight and said, with some hesitation, that she had a favour to ask. Would I take charge of her souvenirs for her?

“Not the animals?” I asked, in lively alarm. I always felt that I should get stuck with those beastly animals sooner or later.

In the end we effected a compromise. I took charge of two small wooden boxes for her which contained fragile articles. The animals are to be packed by the local store in vast crates and sent to Cape Town by rail, where Pagett will see to their being stored.