Occasionally they have been put to other uses, such as hospital depots, shelters for refugees, and temporary hospitals.  Generals and their staffs have been quartered in them for the night, and, in fact, they have accompanied the British soldier to the front as his ’home from home’ wherever he has gone.

But to return to the work of the S.C.A. at Capetown.  When this work began it was found that there was no post-office at the south arm or jetty where the troops disembarked, and thousands of the troops were proceeding to the front without the opportunity of posting the letters they had written, or sending home the money they had received during the voyage.  With his usual carelessness, ‘Tommy’ was leaving his letters with any one he saw on the jetty, and even confiding his money to be sent home by any chance passer-by.

The S.C.A. got permission to undertake this work and soon had an amateur post-office in full working order.  In this way thousands of letters reached anxious friends at home which might otherwise have been delayed for weeks.  And more than this, thousands of pounds in money were received by the workers and safely transmitted home, one regiment alone, the King’s Own Scottish Borderers, committing to the care of the S.C.A. workers no less than L800.  Large quantities of writing-material and religious literature were also distributed amongst the troops before they proceeded on their long and tedious journey up country.

[Footnote 1:  Our Soldiers.]

=Work Among the Refugees.=

It will be remembered that when the war broke out the missionaries were, with very few exceptions, compelled to leave the Transvaal.  The General Superintendent of Wesleyan Missions in the Transvaal District, the Rev. Geo. Weavind, had been so long resident in the country as to be able to take up his rights as a burgher.  He therefore stayed to look after his few remaining people, and four other Wesleyan missionaries remained by special permission with him.  For the rest, the missionaries were scattered:  some to Capetown, some to Durban, some to obtain appointments as acting-chaplains, or officiating clergymen; but all of them to work in some way or other for the Master, to whose service they had given their lives.

At Durban, similar work was done.  The Transvaal Relief Committee (a sub-committee of the Durban Town Council Relief Committee), with the Rev. Geo. Lowe as chairman, did splendid work among the refugees, of whom at one time there were 21,000 in Durban alone.  This relief work was splendidly organized and most effective.

The Sisters Evelyn and Miriam, who organized much of this work, were Wesley deaconesses employed in South Africa.  Sister Evelyn Oats was resting in England after five years’ most exhausting and successful work, but hurried back to South Africa on the first news of the outbreak of war, and was soon hard at work among the refugees.  Sister Miriam had been employed at Johannesburg, and remained there until nearly every one had gone, and she was left alone in the house.  And then she also left and found her way to Durban, where her nursing skill was of the utmost value among the poor women, homeless and destitute, in the hour of their deepest need.