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Military History – South Africa – Europe – England 19th Century
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who had a slight tendency to deafness, has now become, I fear, permanently deaf in both ears ;
she caught such chills from the draughts and damp coming under the tent. Consequences such as this,
which don’t appear in the death-rate or anywhere else, will be very common results of this whole
camp system.
I do wish someone would come out and take up the question of the Native Camps. From odd bits
I hear it would seem to be much needed.
An old man was arrested in the Camp yesterday. It appears that a gossipping woman refugee
went to the Commandant and stated that she had heard the old man say : “ Perhaps the Boers will be
in Bloemfontein again, some day.” So he was arrested and sent in to prison.
Feb. 27.—I am beginning to think a good deal about the future and my best plan of procedure.
The demand for clothing is so huge that it is hopeless to think that the private charity of England and
Colonial working parties combined can effectually cope with more than a very small portion of it.
The Government recognise that they must provide necessary clothes, and I think we all agree that,
having brought these people into this position, it is their duty to do so. It is, of course, a question for
the English folk to decide how long they like to go on making and sending clothes. There is no doubt
they are immensely appreciated, besides, they are mostly made up, which the Government clothing
won’t be.
So far five camps are, and have been, open to me ; but several more remain in this State, and
very large and important ones in the Transvaal. I may, by luck, get to Kroonstadt, etc., but Lord
Kitchener has twice distinctly refused me permission to go further north.
Any amount of money could, of course, be spent in making the people more comfortable,
especially now that they are getting to the end of such small sums as they had with them, and much
might be spent in getting girls and boys away to the good schools ; but the largest sums will be needed
as and when they are allowed to leave and go back to begin life again.
If I knew how much money was likely to come altogether I should know how to lay it out to the
best advantage.
The four girls selected for the Institute are aged 13-18 years. The day after her arrival one of
them developed typhoid, and we must send her to the Volks Hospital, and select another girl in her
place. Mrs. ——, mother of two of the above girls, is my great help and stand-by in the Camp. She
belongs to an old Cape family ; her husband was a landdrost, and she, of course, lost everything. But
she has set a splendid example in the Camp of what you may call common-sense, and, besides, allows
us to make her tent a regular depot for bundles of clothing, comforts, etceteras of all kinds, and does
hours of untiring interpreting for me personally. I have failed to get as matron the woman I wanted,
and so I have definitely asked Mrs. —— to go round the tents and look after the sick and emaciated
babies and the women who are ill, but unable to go to hospital, either because that is full or because
of so many small children they cannot leave. So many of the more ignorant prisoners are puzzled by
the doctor and superintendents, and all need a link through a kind, sensible woman like Mrs. ——.
She is also doing a great deal of voluntary work, such as undertaking 200 families for the Clothing
Committee (no sinecure), and cooking for and tending a dear old prisoner, who is in consumption, and
came up from Greenpoint because the sea-air was killing him.
You know we have three tin hospitals, each containing 16 beds, always full—for men, women,
and children—also two or three marquees for other cases.
The Sister has done splendid work in her domain, battling against incessant difficulties. She has
worked in this Camp since its formation. When I tell you we have already had some 70 cases of
typhoid, besides an epidemic of measles, pneumonia, tonsilitis, and other cases, you will realise what
the strain on her has been. In addition, she has had the worry of nothing ready to her hand, and the
very hospital only building by degrees through it all ; and, to crown the work, she has had the task of
training Boer girls to nurse under her.
They have put up five rows of corrugated iron rooms (I can’t call them houses), two rows of
single rooms back to back—ten in a row, twenty in a building—and each of these rooms contains one
family or more. About a hundred families are thus accommodated. The iron partitions don’t run to the
roof, so noise, draught, and infection can play through the entire structure. Some prefer them, because
they have floors. £2,500 has been expended on the erection of these bare miserable rooms, apart from
all the other expenses of the Camp. So you see it is a very costly business upon which England has
embarked, and even at such a cost hardly the barest necessaries can be provided, and no comforts. It
is so strange to think that every tent contains a family, and every family is in trouble—loss behind,
poverty in front, sickness, privation, and death in the present. But they are very good, and say they
have agreed to be cheerful and make the best of it all.
*
A disappointment was in store about this. When the written application was sent in six weeks passed,
and then the request was refused by the military. Her husband was never on commando, but went with
the Red Cross. For 14 months she has neither seen nor heard of him, and does not know if he alive or
dead. Her old father in Cape Colony is 80 and she wants so much to see him once more. Besides this,
her health is gradually breaking down in the Camp, and one of her children has died.
*
Have rigged them out with those nice dark blue skirts and the print blouses.
SPRINGFONTEIN.
March 4.
I am in this queer little spot, the highest place, they say, in the Free State ; and I am being lodged
by a most hospitable German Lutheran missionary. They give me a room and the best of everything
that they have, and I enjoy seeing how they live, and they are charming in their simple way, and truly
generous. I brought them down a big box of groceries from B———. Everything is so scarce, many
necessaries unobtainable. I was very sorry to leave Mrs. F———’s house. She has been so very kind
and good to me, but I have left a small Committee to work in the
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Anglo-Boer-War
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