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Military History – South Africa – Europe – England 19th Century
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Camp and watch the interest of the people there, and I am anxious to visit Kimberley and others.
My difficulty is that, in spite of my permit, I am not allowed to travel below Norval’s Pont, and one
has to go down to De Aar and up again to reach Kimberley.
I have several days’ work here. It is a comparatively small and recent Camp, but the people are
poorer and more utterly destitute than any I have yet seen.
The Commandant is a kind man, and willing to help both the people and me as far as possible,
but his limitations (and mine), through lack of material, are woeful. Fortunately, I brought three cases
of clothing with me ; but it is a drop in the ocean of their needs. All day I have sat in a farmhouse
stoep, and had each family in succession brought to me from the tents, fitting each in turn with clothes
as far as possible, just to cover their nakedness. Each woman tells me her story, a story which, from
its similarity to all which have gone before, grows monotonous. But it is always interesting to note the
various ways in which the great common trouble is met by divers characters. Some are scared, some
paralyzed and unable to realise their loss, some are dissolved in tears ; some, mute and dry-eyed,
seem only able to think of the blank, penniless future ; and some are glowing with pride at being
prisoners for their country’s sake.
A few bare women had made petticoats out of the brown rough blankets—one had on a man’s
trousers. Nearly all the children have nothing left but a worn print frock, with nothing beneath it, and
shoes and socks long since worn away. Shoes we must leave—it is hopeless—until we call procure
rolls of sole leather and uppers, lasts and sprigs, and then the men can make veld schoone, a simple
kind of rough shoe.
I clothed about fifteen families to-day, or about sixty persons, and hope to do the same tomorrow, and I may collect some old clothes from the residents here to help us along.
In despair I went to the one village shop, but it is long since cleared out, and I came away empty,
save for some packets of needles. I had been giving some material for women to make their own
boys, clothing, but we are stopped by the utter famine of cotton or thread. Scissors are handed round
from tent to tent ; thimbles are very few. Everything here is so scarce that the sight of my rough deal
packing cases cre quite a sensation—not for what was inside, but for the actual wood. They are
destined to make low bedsteads, tables, and a few bits for firing.
Mattresses, I fear, are out of the question here on account of the lack of material, but we thought
low beds might be made if a little wood could be found mid strips of sacking nailed across. This
would lift them off the ground for the winter. Perhaps we shall manage a few. The crying need in this
Camp is fuel. Wood there is none ; a little coal is served out, but so little that many days the people
cannot cook at all, and their rations are raw meat, meal, and coffee, so each of these needs fire. if you
could peep at Springfontein you would at once realize the hopelessness of getting any fuel—a bare
veldt, covered with short sparse vegetation, ringed by barest kopjes, stony, and without even grass.
Except at the farm where I sat there are no trees, and these have been grown with greatest pains. So
there is nothing to burn.
Women to whom I have given nothing nor offered to, and who neither ask nor wish for charity,
express deepest gratitude for the bare tidings that any English people feel for them. They are very
sore at heart, and are really helped by the knowledge that we understand at all the aspect of affairs as
it appears to them. They are tired of being told by officers that they are refugees under the “ kind and
beneficent protection of the British.” In most cases there is no pretence that there was treachery, or
ammunition concealed, or food given, or anything. It was just that an order was given to empty the
country.
One woman told me to-day that a waggon load of her goods was brought away by soldiers, and
followed their convoy. She begged hard for a favourite chair of hers, but was refused.
One afternoon a poor young Tommy came to the door of this house to buy eggs. He was from
Somersetshire, near Taunton, and “ zo Zummerzet ” in his talk that I had to go out and interpret. Poor
boy, he was very sorry for himself and longing for home. Never, never, never would he go to war
again ; he had had a “ sickener.” He was just out from hospital and an attack of slow fever, and was
jealous of the C.I.V.’s going home so soon. I gave him my pot of cocoa, which he said would be a
great treat. He had had to sleep in six inches of water, and all his rations were swamped and those of
his companions.
I just want to say, while it’s in my mind, that the blouses sent from England, and supposed to be
full grown, are only useful here for girls of 12 to 14 or so—much too small for the well-developed
Boer maiden, who is really a fine creature. Could an out, out woman’s size be procured ? and for
camp-life dark colours are best. It’s hard to keep clean, and soap is a luxury, water not
superabundant. You would have realized the scarcity and poverty a little had you seen me doling out
pins and needles by twos and threes, and dividing reels of cotton and bits of rag for patching. A few
combs I brought up from Capetown were caught at with joy.
There is very little time here for letter writing, as I am busy in Camp all day, and then we all
have to be in bed and lights out by 8.30 p.m. It’s rather nice living with the sun in this sort of way.
With regard to the vexed question of differing nationalities, is it generally known and realized at
home that there are many large native (coloured) Camps dotted about ? In my opinion these need
looking into badly. I under-
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Anglo-Boer-War
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