ap in
the yard and an open furrow through which the town water ran, the
lower end of which was used as a wash-place by prisoners, white and
black alike. Within a foot or two of the furrow where alone washing
of the person or of clothing was allowed stood the gaol urinals.
There was neither adequate provision in this department nor any
attempt at proper supervision, the result being that through
irregularities, neglect, and defective arrangement the ground on both
sides of the water-furrow for six or eight yards was horribly stained
and saturated by leakage. Many of the prisoners could not approach
this quarter without being physically ill. Without further detail it
may be stated that there were at that time over 250 prisoners, about
100 of whom were white. There were three closets and six buckets for
the accommodation of all, and removals took place sometimes once a
day, sometimes once in every four days. Nothing but the horror of
such conditions, and the fact that they prevail still in Pretoria
Gaol, and presumably in other gaols more removed from critical
supervision, could warrant allusions to such a disgusting state of
affairs.

At 6.15 breakfast was served. A number of tin dishes, containing one
pound of mealie-meal porridge (ground maize) each were placed in a
row on the ground in the yard in the same manner as a dog's food
might be set out. A bucket near by contained some coarse salt in the
condition in which it was collected in the natural salt pans, the
cubes varying from the size of peas to the size of acorns. No sugar,
milk, tea, or coffee, was allowed. In order to utilize the salt the
prisoners were obliged to crush it with rough stones on the cement
steps. Needless to say, but few partook of this food. To those who
had not tasted it before in the course of prospecting or up-country
travelling where conditions are sometimes very hard, it was no
more possible to swallow it than to eat sawdust.

Dinner was at twelve o'clock, and it consisted of coarse meat boiled
to that degree which was calculated to qualify the water in which it
was boiled to be called soup, without depriving the meat of all title
to be considered a separate dish. With this meal was also served half
a pound of bread. Supper, which was provided at five o'clock, was
exactly the same as breakfast.

Two days of this fare told very severely upon those whose physical
condition was not of the best. By the third day several of the older
men and