N.H. LINDENBERG P.O.W., BOER CAMP, BELLARY INDIA, 27.10.01

Manuscript letter, four sides of a single sheet of lined paper, from N.H. Lindenberg, no. 194, Sect. 2; Boer Camp, Bellary, India, dated 27.10.01.

Lindenberg writes to his future wife Alice at \"Kliphoek\". Hopefield, dist. Malmesbury, Cape of Good Hope, in excellent and colourful English - see transcription below.

He includes an amusing note on \'Boer Cooks\', this presumably being a comment on the food prisoner received in the camps.

He also adds, in a minute hand, a quote from Tennyson at the top of the first page.

With the remnants of an envelope bearing the censor\'s stamp,Jul 8 1902, Bellary. Why the censor\'s date stamp is so much later than the date of the letter is not known and it must be assumed that it is not the original envelope in which this particular letter was sent.

Lindenberg became a teacher and eventually a school principal in Cape Town.

From N H Lindenberg P.O.W.

No 194, Sect. 2;

Boer Camp,

Bellary

India

27.10.01

My dearest Alice,

By the time you receive this you will be engrossed with Xmas topics (very world-wide & ephemeral, maybe as man is apt to be discussing) the higher sense of man\'s duty will be flung aside for the present, and sensual pleasures and gaiety, worldly joys and victories, congratulations and good wishes – very vain and simply in themselves – take hold of every human being. \"Peace on Earth and Goodwill towards men\" is an empty phrase to most human minds, cultivated or uncultivated. On the one hand, the smoke of battle, the lust for shedding blood, the revengeful spirit; in the other \"vanities\" and this is the enlightened twentieth century!

But I must not sermonize ….

Your dear letters of 7.8.01 & 26.8.01 require answering. I hope by this time you are fully aware of the reason of my \"procrastination\" as you think it.

Write as often as you can, I shall do the same on my part. As you so kindly wish to send me some money, which I need not even mention would be very welcome I shall say either send it by the usual way of taking out a moneyorder or by a Standard Bank note & registered letter. Please send only a little at a time.

I pass my time by studying, reading & exercising. I have given up \"keeping school\" since the Govt. school has been opened in our camp. We have ½ doz subscribers to the public library & once a week I sally forth to exchange books, which are only of the fiction kind & the well known works of Shakespeare, Milton Thackeray & the like, but we are very thankful even for small mercies like these.

I shall, to gratify your wish, bring you a souvenir or two from the land of my exile, & hope not to disappoint any of my friends & relatives. I must impress on you again not to send any parcels or the likes as the authorities do not hold themselves responsible for the loss. George\'s parcel, long overdue, has not yet reached me, so you see the disappointment is only the greater for me.

How I long to see you in your new home one day & and what a host of questions will we not have to answer each other! I hope you will not be involved in any difficulty during the present crisis. Even you have been fated to see & suffer what has never appealed to your mind before. We live in a time of revelations & learnings.

Now my dear Alice my letter writing powers have suddenly collapsed & I would fain see the letter to the very end, so in order not to disappoint you with a blank page I shall give you a description of the powers of a Boer Cook.

With apologies to the writer and all others interested

Essay on Boer Cooks

The Boer cook exemplifies a Chinese river in his magnanimous powers of \"doing\" it. He is a rushing, hurrying, stoking individual, but subsides as calmly again as he was before boisterous. He hurries, confuses & creates a turmoil like the Bore of renown, and when satisfied think he has created as much displeasure as lay in his power as Cook, he calmly retires selfconfident of success & with some malignant joy. \"Cook\" is sometimes a hired personage – paid by the day but working by the hour! He is never the same, I mean he never cooks day after day; he gives his brother Cooks a chance to create, if that be possible, more revenge, more growling, more dyspeptics! He boils the tea 3 hours; to the dinner he attributes one. He mashes potatoes & meat together, rice & pumpkin ditto, & should you have no great relish for this p.o.w. concoction he confides in you, with a knowing wink, that a little brown sugar with it, it tip top! His hours for meals are atrocious. He is topsy turvydom itself and does not consider the feelings etc of others. His ….. but here I must end.

Your affectionate,

Nico.