It was not until the arrival in 1872 of Dr. Dyer, who had been in the government service of the Cape Colony, that two long, cool wattle and daub buildings were erected near the race-course, providing beds for about twenty patients. Dr. Dyer, Dr. Grimmer and myself attended to this hospital gratuitously for some time. Everything in those days was of the most primitive description. A large tent served as a dead-house, and I well remember, on one of my morning visits wishing to see the body of a patient who I was informed had died during the night, finding on going into this tent merely the trunk of the poor fellow’s body left; the prowling, ravenous dogs, which then roamed about, having devoured the poor man’s limbs, which they had torn in pieces from his body. The first case of lunacy which ever came to my notice in Griqualand West I also saw here. Divisions constructed of mud and wattles were placed between the beds to promote extra privacy in certain cases, so this lunatic when brought in was placed in one of these inclosures. There was but one white man and his wife to superintend everything. The first time I saw this poor fellow I found him raving mad, without an attendant, or even a straight-jacket, tied down with ropes, struggling in his wild delirium. The scene, but for its sadness, would have been ludicrously grotesque. The madman having managed to withe his body round, and having gnawed a hole through the mud wall, and head all the time popping in and out like a “Jack in a box,” was attempting to worry the patient in the next bed, the latter though almost frightened to death, being too weak to move away. The whole place was a chamber of horrors worthy of the pencil of a Gustave Doré. Although the management was much to blame, and the public were apathetic, yet the doctors attending did not escape public criticism. I can even now call to mind one very scathing attack, which I believe had much to do with the removal of the building, in which Hood’s lines were applied to them: “’Twas strange, although they got no fees, How still they watched by two’s and three’s, But Jack a very little ease Obtained from them. In fact, he did not find M. D.’s Worth one D. M.” At the time, also, I wrote to the _Diamond Field_ giving a description of the wretchedness of the place, and did what I could to promote improvement. The hospital, which was established at the jail, and which was entirely under government control, was even worse than the Dry Diggings hospital which I have just described. At the risk of being a little tedious I will give an extract from a description of this place which I wrote to the _Diamond News_ July 7th, 1873.