Late in November a local wheelwright thought he would extract the charge from a Boer shell which had not exploded. The good man used a steel drill. For a time all went well, and his two companions bent over to watch the operation; then came a hideous row, a smell, a smoke, and the wheelwright, with both his comrades, was hurled into space.
The Boers had not spared the hospital or the convent. The poor Sisters had had a fearful time; the children’s dormitory was in ruins, and their home riddled with holes. Still the brave Sisters stuck to their post, comforted the dying, nursed the sick, and set an example of holy heroism. Here is an extract from a letter describing a scene with the Kaffirs:
“It is amusing to take a walk into the stadt, the place of rocks, and watch the humours of the Kaffirs, some 8,000 in number. Now and then they hold a meeting, when their attire is a funny mixture of savagery and semi-civilization. You come upon a man wearing a fine pair of check trousers, and nothing else, but mighty proud of his check; another will wear nothing but a coat, with the sleeves tied round his neck; some wear hats adorned with an ostrich feather, and a small loin-cloth. My black friend was such a swell among them that he wore one of my waistcoats, a loin-cloth, and a pair of tennis shoes. He wore the waistcoat in order to disport a silver chain, to which was attached an old watch that refused to go. But it was a very valuable ornament to Setsedi, and won him great influence in the kraal. Yet when my friend Setsedi wanted to know the time of day, if he was alone, he just glanced at the shadow of a tree; or if in company, he lugged out his non-ticker, and made believe to consult it in conjunction with the sun. The sun might be wrong—that was the impression he wished to create—and it was perhaps more prudent to correct solar time by this relic of Ludgate Circus. Thus Setsedi, like other prominent politicians, did not disdain to play upon the credulity of his compatriots.
“Sometimes on a Sunday afternoon, when the Boers were keeping the Sabbath and no shells were flying around, the children of the veldt would begin a dance. They formed into groups of forty or fifty, and began with hand-clapping, jumping, and stamping of bare feet. The old crones came capering round, grinning and shrieking delight in high voices apt to crack for age. From stamping the young girls passed on to swaying bodies, every limb vibrating with rising emotion, as they flung out sinewy arms with languorous movement; then more wild grew the dance, more loud the cries of the dancers, as they threw themselves into striking postures, glided, shifted, retreated, laughed, or cried.
“I had been watching them for some time when Setsedi came up to me and said:
“‘Baas, I go now to mark some cows for to-night; will you come?’
“‘What! has the big white chief given you leave to make a raid?’ I asked.
“‘Yes, Marenna—yes; we are to go out to-night, and bring in a herd from beyond the brickfields yonder—if we can.’
“‘And you go now, this afternoon, to mark them down, and spy out the ground?’