HANDWRITTEN LETTER BY THE AUTHOR OF "OLDEN TIMES IN ZULULAND AND NATAL" REGARDING THE SCARCITY OF ONE OF HIS PAMPHLETS

Handwritten letter by Alfred Thomas Bryant (1865-1953) who was a British- born Catholic missionary, linguist and historian. He worked in Natal Province and Zululand from the 1880s to the 1920s and is best known for his writings on Zulu language, history and indigenous knowledge systems.

The letter is written in pencil for which Bryant provides and explanation in the contents. Signed at the end in ink.

Time stains and moderate wear along the edges.

"17 Hillside Road, Harpenden England, 27/2/39

Dear Sir,

First of all please excuse the present scrawl in pencil, I am at present lying on my back in bed in a Nursing Home with a broken leg (motor accident), where writing with pen & ink is difficult.

I frequently get requests for my ancient pamphlet on Zulu Foodstuffs, but alas! am never able to meet them, seeing that I possess now only one single copy of the thing. It was published originally for and at the cost of, the Natal Govt. Native Affairs Department, and there used to be a number of copies in the cupboard of the Chief Commissioner (then 'Secretary') for Native Affairs, P.M.B. (Pietermaritzburg). I don't know whether they are still there! or stored away on some other long forgotten shelf. Enquire anyway, the cream of the contents I later on incorporated in a larger work on The Zulu People Before the Whitemen Came : Their Physical & Social Life, which I have been trying, in vain, for several years to get printed. There seem some good prospects, however, now that the work will someday (!) be printed by a small Catholic mission-press in Swaziland; but I cannot say when! Much of life, I find, is wasted in vain Dreams & futile hopes. I trust this is not going to turn out another of them!

Ever yours,

A. T. Bryant."

The date of the letter appears to be 1939, which means it would have been another 10 years before Bryant saw his work published!