‘My God! it is too horrible,’ he murmured, as he saw a severed head lying alone and ghastly here, with · set and staring eyes. It reminded him of his thoughts, in times past, of what the day of doom must be like. It seemed to him, as he found a human arm here, a leg, a hand, a head, or some portion of a body, there, that these portions of human bodies were waiting to be re-united to their other parts. He ran about, as if in a fever, and as if he would avoid seeing these terrible emblems of death lying about. Spade in hand, he would now assist in following a limb protruding from the mass of debris, lying on the brink of the vast hole that had been made by the explosion, after which task had been done, he would rush down to the bottom of the hole itself, and there again work and dig till the sweat poured from his face. After he could find no more rescue work here to be done, (so many others being busy in the same task that there was hardly room for all), he rushed towards the many fallen houses, fallen upon the inmates, where there was work enough for all. Oh, what a sight! A sight, once seen, never to be forgotten, if you live for a thousand years! Here is lying a dead mother, clasping her dead child to her cold breast. Here are a mother and three children, all found dead in one room. Here is a father, mad because of his grief, holding his dead child in his arms while moaning over his dead wife--dead, all dead--_death_ here, _death_ there, DEATH everywhere! How the men worked! Affliction makes us all of a kin. Not one skulked. Everyone was doing his best to rescue the wounded from the wrecks of once happy homes. No thought of politics here; no racial distinctions thought of. Here, in this great affliction all were of one race--the human race. Dutch and English work together like brothers. An Englishman rescues and handles a child of Dutch parents as tenderly as if it were his own. A Dutchman pulls out of the ruins a ‘rooinek,’ and supports his head as tenderly as if it was his own father, while he holds the restoring cup to his lips. When God wishes our hearts to be softened towards each other, he sends us affliction.
While the work of rescue is still going on, others, moved with pity at the sight of homeless and friendless ones not killed or wounded, begin to subscribe of their plenty, so that these may be provided for--a movement that was responded to most liberally from all South Africa, so that, at least, those who were left behind were provided for. Steve worked hard as long as he could, but at midnight he gave place to fresh ones who came up, as he was now thoroughly knocked up, and went to his hotel to get a few hours rest.