To: Frances Lloyd (21 March 1861)

To: Frances Lloyd (21 March 1861)

Correspondence

A letter from Jemima Lloyd to her sister Fanny, sent from Mrs Roesch's boarding house in Cape Town on Thursday 21 March 1861. This letter describes her first meeting with Wilhelm Bleek. Jemima reports struggling to write in the heat, which has left her with a sore back and shaky hands. She wonders how everyone is in Natal and hopes Fanny is feeling better. Lucy will give details of her voyage to the Cape. She describes recent outings to Green Point and Town as well as who accompanied her. She had her photograph taken for Lucy, which Mrs Fisher names "Grim", as it is a bad one. Jemima urges Fanny to keep up her exercises and thanks her for all she did to help before Jemima's departure, especially her patience with Jemima's bad temper and their troublesome sister Julia. She reports that "a German Dr Bleek by name" has joined their lodgings - he is unwell and said to be "very clever", working under Sir George Grey on native grammars. Jemima asks after their younger stepsiblings and urges Fanny to keep silent with their father. She hopes Fanny is not worrying too much about Lucy and urges her to take care of herself. She ends with love, apologising for the "shabby" letter.

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1. Jemima is probably referring in this letter to exercises, by then fashionable with Victorian ladies (eg. calisthenics). 2. See Long v Bishop of Cape Town, 1863. 3. It is highly probable Jemima described Wilhelm to Lucy - in this letter she refers to telling Lucy about the "fellow lodgers". 4. Although hard to make out in Jemima's writing, "July"is her youngest sister Julia Lloyd.