Womans Endurance | Page 7

and must hold two
services.
Walked through Camp this evening (10 p.m.); found several women
busy round fire; all to warm "pap" (poultice) for sick children.
Pneumonia is playing havoc.
Better stop; feeling tootoo to-night; and besides, my two letters have
again been returned by the Censor, and I am too cross for anything.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: Mr. Van As and Mr. Fourie laid out the floor for my tent,
and encircled it with a 9-inch wall.]
[Footnote 2: Each tent was numbered.]
[Footnote 3: Not real church elders; each, however, had a block of tents
under his care.]
[Footnote 4: Stream between Camp and village; it only had running
water, though, after rain.]
[Footnote 5: Mr. Van As's eldest daughter.]

[Footnote 6: Sannie Otto was the bosom friend of Sarah van As. Sarah
has since died.]
[Footnote 7: My father was for many years minister at Colesberg, and
my uncle again at Fauresmith.]
[Footnote 8: Some friends at Durbanville subscribed about £20, with
which I had bought some invalid food, to take down with me from
Cape Town (beef tea, Benger's Food, jelly, arrowroot, dozen bottles of
port). While visiting the sick I noted down the most distressing cases,
and after the day's work I made a final round to these tents with some
of this invalid food.]
[Footnote 9: Pieter de Lint, an old College friend.]
[Footnote 10: Our Hymnary is divided into Psalms and Evangelical
hymns (Psalmen en Gezangen).]
[Footnote 11: I decided to note down always in diary my text for the
address at the gravesides. Our people expect the pastor to give an
address before reading the Burial Service.]
[Footnote 12: What with water to be carried, rations to be fetched,
wood to be brought and chopped, food to be cooked (in the open),
bread to be baked, washing to be done (not to speak of the menial
sanitary duties), it was indeed hard for a mother (herself perhaps weak),
with a number of sick children, to keep her tent clean.]
[Footnote 13: Van Huysteens. The mother was shot while they were
fleeing before the English. There was a babe of five months.]
[Footnote 14: As a pigeon feeds its young.]
[Footnote 15: Where I have often camped out.]
[Footnote 16: College chum.]
[Footnote 17: The twelfth was probably in hospital.]

[Footnote 18: When removing the dead from a certain section of the
Camp, the bearers had to pass my tent.]
[Footnote 19: She was a probationer.]
[Footnote 20: The women, brandishing the meat ration on high, literally
laid siege to the official tent. The meat supplied was miserably lean,
quite unfit for consumption. I myself wouldn't have given it to a dog.
When thrown against a wall, for instance, it would stick. Throughout
the Camp it was dubbed "vrekvlys" (a man dies, an animal
"vreks"--vlys is meat). The flour given was good, for the bread was
usually excellent.]
[Footnote 21: This number soon grew to 800.]
[Footnote 22: There were three such tents about 100 yards beyond the
hospital; they were the most dilapidated tents in the whole Camp,
always open; they were occasionally blown down.]
[Footnote 23: A ration of coal was sometimes served out.]
[Footnote 24: Another old College chum.]
[Footnote 25: The Van As's received my ration (which was same as
theirs), and I took all my meals with them.]
[Footnote 26: This doctor, a most capable man, was always most
friendly to me. I had learnt to humour him, and he was ever willing to
accompany me, even at night, to desperate cases. He was, however,
almost as universally detested as he was feared, and ultimately was
knocked down by an irate husband.]

CHAP. II.
Sunday, September 1.--Recklessness; preached twice to-day without
any preparation; "sommer uit die vuis uit" (literally, straight from the
fist); simply compelled to; very unpleasant day; wind and dust; made

services very short; fifty-five minutes.
In afternoon a large crowd of young people.
Mr. Otto took funerals for me this morning (eleven buried).
This afternoon Mr. Becker buried six.
About fourteen have died since last night.
It is pitiable to see the innocent little children and babies suffering and
struggling against the accursed pneumonia; and there seems no hope
when once they get it. Poor little mites!
A census taken lately gives 683 as the number of sick. Milk ration[27]
has been stopped since yesterday; new sorrow. Our Camp a veritable
valley of desolation. For the very essence of sorrow and misery, come
here! For weeping, wailing mothers, come here! For broken hearts,
come here! For desperate misery and hopelessness, come here! What
would become of us if we had not our Religion to fall back upon! What,
if we had not the assurance that a Good and Merciful God reigns above!
What if there was no Love!