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The Cocoa Tree
24.XI.02
Dear John
I wonder if you have heard of poor Cubby's illness. He got typhoid abroad and is in London now very dangerously ill. I have just heard from Bron Herbert that the doctor has practically given up hope. It is awfully sad isn't it? One can only go on hoping against hope.
Since I wrote to you last my plans have become a little less vague. I have heard of a man in Natal, Frank Nicholson of Thornville Junction and am
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writing to see if he will take me as a pupil for a year. I am afraid I shall not get away till the beginning of March tho' I hoped to get off before Xmas. I have met a cousin of his, who seems a very nice man; he has been out there and knows the place and the people and it sound alright. I daresay I shall make an awful hash of farming but I should think it would be a better job to fail in than in a profession over here.
London is not very attractive, at the moment it is pouring with rain, and we have a fog most mornings, which makes me all the more annoyed at not being able to start at once.
I hope I have not put you to any trouble and that this will reach
