[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
SIR,—An incident of the above debatable subject which came under my personal observation many years ago may even now be of interest to many of your readers. The incident to which I refer occurred to a loyal and highly important African Chief, King Lewanika, who was returning to his home under my guidance, after being received in England as a Royal Guest for His Majesty King Edward VIII's Coronation, and I quote from a manuscript, which I hope to publish shortly, dealing with the life and death of this distinguished potentate. It begins :
"The voyage from Southampton to Cape Town was calm and uneventful, and with one small insignificant exception the same remark can be applied to the train journey from Cape Town to Bulawayo. The exception referred to occurred at Kimberley, where at first, through being a native, Lewanika's right to be on the plat- form was questioned by an officious native ticket collector. The 'contretemps' did have its comic side, for here was a man who
d a special pass over the principal English railways, who at Ca etee8r8loo was sped on his journey by a high Colonial Office official, supported by a bowing and stately station-master, now choked off at Kimberley Station by, possibly, one of his own countrymen, for trespass on a platform where only whites were allowed."
Again I quote from the same source :
"At Bulawayo, where at that time good hotels were few and far between, we had to be content with one which had a very limited accommodation, and where the attitude of its visitors was not alto- gether genial, either from my point of view or that of Lewanika, and my thoughts flew back to the last London hotel we visited when, as I have already recorded, Sir Robert Williams was our host, and the pleats included many of London's leading members of Society. But it all came out in the wash, and in a few more days we were in Kazengulu and in the King's own country."
"Whites," London.
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