June 4 Thursday – Sam and Carlyle Smythe arrived at Queenstown, Cape Colony (pop. 4,000+) at 7 a.m. They took rooms at Joplin’s Commercial Hotel, where Sam slept six hours. Later in the day the pair were admitted to the Queenstown Club, where their names were entered in the Club Visitors Book by W. Wainright, and A.D. Webb, a prominent attorney. They would return in two days for wine and speeches [Philippon 20; Parsons, “Clubman in S.A.” 249].

Parsons writes of the billiard contests between Sam and Smythe, probably at the Queenstown Club or at Joplin’s Hotel, which advertised a “Spacious Billiard room”:

…the congenial travelers probably resumed their one-sided contest in which Sam complained, “Carlyle Smythe beats me to death — by fluking” and by “his habit to make new rules driving billiards” [“Traveler in S.A.” 24].

Sam wrote to Livy, sending the letter to East London ahead of her June 6 sailing.

Dearheart, we traveled all night & reached here at 7 this morning. Very glad to get your letter & Ash-Cat’s [Clara’s] to-day. We have telegraphed you a few minutes ago that I am perfectly well, which is true. I slept 6 hours in the train; & that made it necessary to sleep 6 more when I reached here this a.m. — which I did. News has come that the Four are released from prison, with banishment & £5,000 fine each. So that business is ended.

Sam related meeting Mr. Brown on the train, one of the prisoners released, who told him they were expecting the four would be set free and fined £100,000 each, so they were happy to get the lesser terms [MTP].

In his notebook Sam called the Boers “dirty,” “indolent,” and “solemn,” and reminded himself to see Olive Schreiner’s The Story of an African Farm (1883) [Gribben 609; NB 38 TS 35].