Further on, in the same report, Dr. Daumas stated:
“It would be rather difficult to tell accurately the number of Boers encamped in this pass (Laing’s Nek), but I do not think I am far from the truth in estimating their number at 1,000 men.
“This small army subsisted there without the help of any commissariat; each man was obliged to provide himself with his own food, which consisted generally in a purely animal diet. He did not receive any pay, and had beside to get his accommodation at his own expense. His obedience to his commanders was absolute. The most perfect order prevailed in this camp, where, strange to say, there never was any drilling done. Far from being intoxicated with their victories, the Boers always showed themselves extremely modest, attributing all their successes to the protection of heaven.... But what remains to be explained is how an army of several thousand men may have been able to take the field and keep it during several months without commissariat, and especially without any medical service, and should not have been more subject to the class of diseases which are in time of war the ordinary sad attendants of all armies.
“Should not the reason of these facts lie in this, i.e., that owing to his sobriety and to the strength of his constitution the Boer has been able to resist the physical causes which produce those diseases; as also through his political faith, coupled with genuine religious faith, he has been able to bear up against the moral causes.”
There is no gainsaying the fact that all through the war the Boers had implicit faith in divine assistance.
Leaving Schuin’s Hooghte we hurried to Newcastle, and next day I left for Ladysmith, intending to catch the mail cart which runs from the Rising Sun to Bloemfontein, and so through the Free State to Kimberley.
Passing through Harrismith, the border town of the Free State, we came to Bethlehem, where I saw the handsome Dutch Church, just finished at a cost of £16,000, and passing Senekal at 5 A. M., nearly frozen in the pitch darkness, I arrived in Winburg at twelve, at noon. Dr. Dixon, the leading practitioner there, soon found me out, and dining at his table with some Kimberley speculators, on coal not diamonds bent, spent a very pleasant afternoon. The post-cart left at 6:30 P. M.; at eight next morning we were in Bloemfontein, and everything going favorably along, July 12th saw me once more on the diamond fields.
CHAPTER XXIV.
TRIP TO ROBBEN ISLAND.—DEAN NEWMAN’S DESCRIPTION THEREOF IN 1855.—OLD SOMERSET HOSPITAL.—LUNATICS AND LEPERS.—HORRIBLE SIGHTS.—LEPROSY AMONG ANIMALS.—DR. WYNNE’S OPINION.—MOURNFUL CASE IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS.—DR. KEITH GUILD’S THEORY OF LEPROSY UNTENABLE.—ANNUAL COST OF LEPERS.—SEGREGATION ACT PASSED BY CAPE PARLIAMENT IN 1884.—DR. ROSS’ REPORT 1886.—VISIT TO CETYWAYO AND LANGIBALELE AT OUDE MOLEN.—MY WIFE’S INTERVIEW WITH CETYWAYO IN LONDON.
When not attending to my parliamentary duties during the session, I took the opportunity of visiting the various sights around Capetown, among others I went over to Robben Island and inspected the lunatic asylum and leper establishment, and to Oude Molen to see Cetywayo and Langibalele. As the treatment of lunatics had always been a branch of medical study in which I felt an especial interest, my readers can well understand it was not long before I paid a visit to Robben Island, where the principal of the three lunatic asylums, of which the Cape Colony boasts, is situated.