Called hurriedly to hospital twice; dying girl just brought in; could understand.

Hysterical girl Martie[30], swearing and cursing all round; each nurse in particular, and the whole lot generally.

Old Mrs. Van Zyl, 492, evidently dying.

Called to enquire after old Mrs. Oosthuizen; found she had died soon after last visit.

Pleasant evening; stories of my travels; in Italy once more.

* * * * *

Wednesday, September 4.—­My visits to hospital I love.

That one girl such a sad case; fever and most terrible headache; they say it is sunstroke.

Hysterical girl quiet.

Filth and stench in some tents almost unbearable.

Nos. 34 and 35 very bad; ventilated tent myself; some folks built that way, and sickness becomes their trench behind which they shelter.  But I will persist in maintaining that no matter the sickness, no matter the distress and poverty, cleanliness is a possibility anywhere[31].  But what an opportunity for the careless to degenerate!

Managed to get bedstead for Mrs. Van Zyl; fear she won’t last long.

I wonder what the safest policy would be when two women pour out their griefs into your ear at the same time.  When they simultaneously tell you all about their departed cherubs?  Some people selfish in their sorrow.  Took little camphor brandy Mrs. Niemand’s; tent full lamenting womenfolk; and the helpless babe casting her black eyes from one to another.  Some people will insist on anticipating the Almighty (the child is dead, though).

Saw a child to-day the very image of a mouse; two months’ illness; large ears; black eyes; thin, bony hands; huddled together.

Very busy afternoon.

Funerals at 4 p.m.; eighteen corpses; “En God zal alle tranen van hunne oogen afwisschen” (And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes).

How can one’s heart remain hard?  Can one be unmoved when you see weeping, stricken mothers kneeling in anguish beside their infants’ graves?

Love, after all, is the greatest and most mysterious of all things.

Explain it that a mother can cling to a helpless, idiotic, deformed boy for fourteen years, and feed him mouth to mouth!  Explain that a mother can sit up night and day, day and night, with a sick child!  Look at those deep-set eyes, sorrow-sunken, their care-wornness, and tell me what is this Love that endureth all things!

Two things have I learnt during these fourteen days which till now to me were “all fancy”—­the meaning of Love and the thing called Religion.

* * * * *

Thursday, September 5th.—­Tent overhauled; floor rubbed and “smeered” (coated); very miserable, windy day; dust; dirt; towards evening cold south winds; fear it will work havoc with the children to-night.

Hospitals; so sorry about Miss Snyman; quite delirious to-day; wonder if she will live.