Dear Mrs Te Water,
I have just arrived at my journey's end, & I must send a hurried line back to the station with the boys who drove me up, to thank you for your great kindness. I shall always have a sweet memory of Graaff Reinet & yourself & your dear husband, I shall never forget you.
The figs you gave me were very much enjoyed by Mr. Cartwright & other of my friends on the train, who all agreed they had never tasted such crystallized fruits. I don't know how to thank you for all your kindness.
Yours affectionately,
Olive Schreiner
A letter written during the Anglo-Boer War 1899-1902. Interestingly the 5th June 1900 was the date upon which British forces under Lord Roberts entered Pretoria. Wagenaar's Kraal is a farm and landmark some twenty kilometres north of Victoria West on the old wagon road to Kimberley. The road passes between two kopjies or hills on the farm where there was a post office. By 1890 the railway to Kimberley had been completed to the east of the farm and the road was less travelled.
Olive Schreiner, who suffered from lifelong chronic asthma, frequently stayed at Wagenaar's Kraal for its health benefits. It appears that she lodged at the farm because there was no inn or hotel there. Several letters from Schreiner's correspondence are headed Wagenaar's Kraal (see The Olive Schreiner Letters Online, https://www.oliveschreiner.org/vre?page=261)
With:
Cabinet Photograph: OLIVE SCHREINER (1855 - 1920). Photographic portrait mounted on stiff card, 177 x 109 mm.
Published by S.B. Barnard, Adderley Street, Cape Town.
