I am continually asked to visit new sick people; there seems to be no end to all the sickness.
The woman in 34 is very bad; next door to 626 is also great misery; children very sick and without medical attendance. That is so sorrowful; the number of tents where no doctor comes[41], the absence of invalid food and nourishment; the hard, bare floor (heard of a case yesterday where grass had begun to grow under sick bed); the despair and helplessness of the mothers.
Another burden—no lights! There are numbers of tents where there is sickness, in some cases dying people, and where to-night there is not an inch of candle.
Pathetic sight yesterday; mother melting odd ends and scraps of tallow and fat to make some sort of candle; daughter on brink of death.
Wonder what plan they have made to-night for light!
Girl 71 still alive; wonderful.
Funerals—nine, I believe; great crowd; calamity; one grave short, and coffin had to be returned; women faint; consternation.
Upset, and couldn't pick my thread in address, "En ziet een groote schaar die niemand tellen kon" (And lo! a great multitude which no man could number). These funerals most painful and wearying, and then the burden of having to give address.
Small quantity boards arrived; may we have no more burials in blankets now!
Mrs. Snyman in tears yesterday in hospital, and her great trouble was that there would be no coffin for her daughter, who is in jaws of death; reprimand; should not anticipate God; besides, the sorrows of to-day are grievous enough, why bear to-morrow's in the bargain?