Had nice chat with Macdonald's father.
Grand dinner; roast mutton and actually a dish full of gravy! Could scarce believe my eyes; real gravy; how glorious; and rice too. Think of it! Let me be silent about the dish of stewed peaches—I might fill pages—a dish fit for the gods. Wonder what the look and smell of a vegetable is? Have just faint recollection of such names as potatoes, onions, beans, cauliflower, pumpkin, but I get a bit blurred when try to discriminate; long absence has stunted my memory. Believe there is a vegetable called beetroot too, and wonder if the name cabbage is correct. By the way, what do we call that stuff one sometimes puts on bread for breakfast and tea? I believe, too, having heard and partaken of a preparation called jam in days gone by. And what, now what, do they always put in tea and coffee in other places? Fancy it has whitish colour; have an idea it can be drunk pure too.
Authority (Assistant Superintendent): "En wanneer eet julle Boere dan breakfast?" (And when do you Boers eat your breakfast?)
"O, ik het laatste in Brandfort breakfast ge'eet; hier het ik schars genoeg vir dinner" (O, I had breakfast last at Brandfort; here I get scarce enough for dinner).
Had nice nap on sofa after dinner; what a noble thing a house is; how spacious, how high, how cool! How unnecessarily large people do build houses nowadays.
At 2.45 had to race back for afternoon service; young people; great crowd (700 about); prepared sermon during the fifteen minutes' walk. Record service; forty-five minutes.
Went through two wards hospital.
Mrs. De Wet dying; poor old mother! But she said all along she wouldn't get well again; several very sick there.
Now for glorious bed.
P.S.—Not yet; there came wail from hospital; so I went up; as I surmised, Mrs. De Wet "gone home"; and shall I soon forget that little band of women in black returning to their tents while the pale sad moon cast its shadows of sympathy!