Page 60 - 2020 SoMJ Vol 73 No 2_Neat

Notes on the Death of Anna Marie Hlawaczek 51

in the 1950s might have told Cullen Young what they knew of rumours that were
circulating at the time of Anna Marie’s death.
The Blantyre Mission reported on Anna Marie’s death in the October
1893 edition of its newsletter ‘Life and Work in British Central Africa’. It took the
high moral ground and having pointed out to its doubtless shocked readers that
Anna Marie was ‘travelling on foot and without any of the comforts necessary to
travellers in such a country’, it asked if there was any ‘power in the country to
veto such suicidal enterprises as that of this poor lady who announced her
intention to walk to Cairo’?
In a considerably longer article in the November 1893 newsletter entitled
Medical Report, the writer ‘G R’ (George Robertson) described how Anna Marie
had arrived in the country having walked from Fort Salisbury with ‘only three
carriers’ in her quest to walk to Cairo and thence to London. He describes her as
‘a thorough scholar, a brilliant talker and a splendid linguist’ who was ‘spending
her spare time and cash’ in travelling to different countries. However, the writer
cast doubt on the wisdom of ‘her wanderings which have ended in a grave in the
African forest’. He goes on to proclaim that ‘Central Africa is neither a health
resort nor a pleasure ground for Europeans’ and then states ‘for a man to do this
sort of thing is bad enough: but for any woman either to travel to live in the bush,
without speedy access to white men and medical aid: is a case of simple madness’.
He concludes that ‘such schemes don’t usually bring so much trouble on the
promoters; but on those whom they come into contact’. No sympathy then from
‘G R’ for the deceased.
The Gravesite
th
On 9 November 2019, Kathy Paul, the Honorary Secretary of the
Society of Malawi, my wife Madalitso and I went to Mulanje to see if we could
find the grave at the Mwinga / Cipendo Fort Anderson. Arrangements were made
with Ruo Estates Limited for us to be escorted from the Ruo Factory to a village
about 2 kms away, just outside the estate boundary. We were met by the Group
Village Headman and around 40 other villagers – young and old – who led us to
the supposed site of Fort Anderson. This was a very short distance away, on a
slight rise overlooking the Ruo River. The site had been heavily cultivated over
the years and all traces of the fort had vanished. The villagers were quite sure
however that this was the site of the ‘first (Ft) Mulanje’.
The river was less than 100 metres from the site of the fort and there was
a steep bank about 3 - 4 metres high above the river. There was no trace of any
grave in the vicinity and no-one present had any knowledge of there ever being a
grave. It was thought that the date of death 126 years ago was just too remote for
it to be recalled. It seems most likely that the grave had at some stage been washed
away by the river, even though it had presumably been dug on top of the steep
bank: storms high on Mulanje Mountain certainly give rise to raging rivers on the
plain below. Cullen Young would be dismayed to learn that ‘the brave lady’s