Het Kamp-leven [1901]

This little diary was given to "My dearest Margaret" [McDonald Marx] fifty years after the end of the Anglo-Boer War by "Aunt - - " [indecipherable]. The diarist writes: " . . . It is written in Nederlands, which was the official language of that time . . . I know you will be interested and get some idea of what your old aunt passed through . . . "

The notebook itself is still legible. Most of the diary paragraphs, written intermittently in pencil and pen in the Springfontein and Bloemfontein refugee (concentration) camps from 20 January to 3 May 1901 and covering some 33 pp, are in Nederlands. Other contents are an eight-stanza poem in Nederlands in memory of [the French general on the side of the Boers] Villabois; a 10-stanza poem on "A Woman's Answer"; another 23-stanza poem on "Die nooitjes van die onderveld"; a copy in Nederlands of a farewell message from three Boer generals from the Transvaal and the Orange River Colony; copies of two petitions to Captain A Hume of the Bloemfonten camp, and of the reply, signed by A S Mey-- on behalf of the Deputy Administrator; another six-stanza poem on "Moment by Moment"; a Sunday school class list; and a six-stanza poem "My Lord and I".

Two of the leaves are stuck together, two have been torn out, some are loose and some have been left blank.