One longs for day, and the night seems never to end.

Twice funerals—­morning at 11 a.m. (six), “Leer ons alzoo onze dagen tellen” ("So teach us to number our days"); afternoon, 4 p.m. (six), “En de dooden werden geoordeeld uit hetgeen in de boeken geschreven was, naar hunne werken” ("And the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works").

Our wood has given in, and we are forced to bury in blankets.  But let me not think on it!  It is painful to remember, and our people feel very deeply.

The Van der Walts managed to put together an apology for a coffin, and there was something pathetically comic about that production.  I think it was made of candle and milk boxes.

That reminds me, what queer pastimes some folks can have.  One man casually informed me that he attends all the funerals!  But some folks unconsciously delight to wander in the sombre shadows of life.  A funeral to me is a most fatiguing duty; more so when one has to give an address at the graves, and there is no time for preparation except on the march to the burying ground.  I am getting reckless, for I am forced absolutely to rely on impromptu grace.  I tremble, when I think what I risk each day.

Visits only a dozen, owing to funerals.

Sad about 91; very bad.

599, 602, 606, 16, 238, 327, all new tents, with great affliction; must go soon again.

Called to 117; Nel; young wife; just received tidings of her husband’s death in Ceylon; desperately stricken; hard, hard case.

Called to hospital; Annie Bothma[19]; strong young girl (twenty); very bad; just struggling to live; mother holding hand.  Foeitog! (alas!) So well and strong; horrid pneumonia; have visited her again, and cannot get reconciled that she should die.  And yet she yearns to be “ontbonden” (loosed), and begs of me to pray to that effect.  Now, God forgive me, but this dying girl’s request I cannot, cannot accede to.  Humanly speaking, she simply cannot live; it is only her abnormally strong constitution that fights so grimly.  I have wrestled with God for her life.  Oh, she must not, may not, die!  Think of the weak, frail mother—­of the father far, far away in Ceylon!  “O ye of little faith”; and yet I firmly believe God can still spare her life.

Yesterday, row about the miserable meat[20].  Some women rather violent and loose with tongue; to-day committed to imprisonment.  Yesterday my letters were returned by the Censor.  I boiled over for some time; such a little snob, who is too big for his boots!  Pinpricks; will fight it out to-morrow.

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Thursday, August 29.—­Went back to hospital after writing above, and then I did indeed pray as the sick girl desired.  God took her home at about two this morning.  Poor child! she did suffer so very much, and yet withal so patiently; “Die doctor het mij gif ingespuyt en gif ingege daarom lei ik zoo zwaar” ("The doctor injected poison into me, and gave me to take poison; that is why I suffer so bitterly"); very likely morphia had to be injected.  Whenever I repeated a verse to her she would say the lines in advance.