June 9 Tuesday – Livy and Clara arrived at Port Elizabeth on the Athenian and took rooms in the Grand Hotel. In King Williams Town, Sam gave his “At Home” (No. 2) talk at Town Hall. Reviews published: June 10: Kaffrarian Watchman; June 13: Cape Mercury thought Sam was better as a writer [Philippon 20-1]. 

Parsons writes,

Arriving in Port Elizabeth on Tuesday the ninth of June, mother and daughter were dashed in spirit by the smallness of their rooms in the Grand Hotel, certainly a less interesting place to stay than the Royal. Clara’s bedroom was “so small that two people can’t stand abreast in it.” “Friendliness and lonesome” they hated “everything that first day; my mother cursed in the conventional female way and I in the masculine & we wished ourselves back in Durban with heart, soul and mind ….People are not generous all over the world & I can tell by the narrow streets that they won’t be here.” There was no “woodfire to warm our frozen rheumatic limbs,” not like the lovely fire and “delightful times” at the Campbells’. Nostalgia quickly set in. Three hours after disembarking, “feeling greatly enriched” by the lost companionship, Livy wrote Mrs. Campbell, “I hasten to tell you how regretful we felt when we got here that we had not staid in Durban….Such good times as we had with you all in Durban! I fear we are not likely to look upon the like again” [“Traveler in S.A” 11].