487; Engelbrecht; Mrs. P. de Lint[9]; wonderful discovery; yet withal sad; father India; children ill; wife broken-hearted; great rejoicing; thanksgiving for change.

321; Old Mr. De Villiers, grand old man; great cheer to myself.

268; Mrs. De Villiers; five children sick.

383; mother died last week; daughter this morning; “Minheer, dit was de prachtigste sterfbed wat ik ooit gezien het” (’Sir, it was the most beautiful deathbed I have ever seen’); “Dag, tante, ik gaat naar die Heere Jesus toe” (’Good-bye, Aunt, I am going to the Lord Jesus’); remaining daughter very, very bad; “Minheer, moet assemblief bid dat ik kan gezond word” (’Sir, you must pray, please, that I may recover’); little hope; inflammation.

292; Van der Berg; wife died last night.

81; casual visit; Mrs. Van Staden; Mrs. Otto; sick children.

80; Mrs. Van der Merwe died to-day; old lady, Mrs. Pienaar, ill in bed; when I repeated some verses Gezang 65[10], old lady forestalled me line for line.

612; “Ach mij lieve ou Pappie”; better.

Five hours’ incessant work; wearisome; thank God when twilight comes.

Work here for ten men; no chance alone; no show; the helplessness of it all! and there are hundreds sick and dying that I know not of, and that I could not visit even should I know.

My brothers-elders must help me more.

Had I not seen body of 80 removed I should never have known.

Funerals this morning; twelve; rude coffins; rough and ready biers (six); young Hugo; “Gelijk een bloem des velds” ("As for man his days are as grass; as a flower of the field so he flourisheth")[11]

Visit Mrs. Liebenberg, whose girlie was buried; prostrate; never saw glimpse of Mr. Becker.

Great concern because of the difficulty of cleanliness amid such dire straits; point determined; to warn and exhort one and all to the strictest cleanliness[12]; for “cleanliness is next to godliness.”

Saw long convoy travelling past.

Eighteen corpses in morgue tents.

* * * * *

Sunday, August 25.—­Longish day.

235a; six orphans[13]; nice and clean; very satisfactory; boy bad.

383; still same; poor girl.

113; death; child; much misery; Olivier.

Church 1.30; open air; glorious weather; attentive congregation; singing impressive; majority stand; grand pulpit(!); regular rostrum.

Afternoon work begins 2 p.m., ends 7 p.m.; incessant, wearying.

Twenty-eight visits.

Our Camp one large hospital, with hundreds wrestling with measles, pneumonia, fever.  The sorrow of it that I never can sit down and say, “Now I have visited all the sick.”  There are hundreds of whom I know nothing.

Horrible whistle that!  It signals the morgue tent people to come and remove the dead.  It is Death’s shrill, harsh, jarring, triumphant shout!  It shivers one through.