Pain! oh yes! Fourteen days in and out of bed alone in a shanty,
forty miles from town. Whitlow they call it; an Indian woman advised
a piece of willow burned and the powder mixed with the yolk of an egg
in the shell; no good. Animals to feed, water to draw, etc., when
one is so scared of one's own finger that one breaks a demijohn up
and cuts a hole in the wicker cover in which to slip one's hand in
bed. Not much to eat and one gets weaker, but has sense enough not to
stay too long in a room with a gun. Got the old horse (Somerset) and
saddle on someway and to town. Lot of English sailors off a gunboat
in the hotel, dancing and singing. Two are interested and want to
know if man will come aboard because they "have a sawbones who will
take it off with a handsaw." Well, surgeon cuts the finger up both
sides and later the other two sides; couldn't tell what it was; never
be a success again. One can see what it was meant for. Another time
diphtheria. Doctor came one hundred and thirty miles and found man
with his head in a blanket on the table, no brush and made one out of
prairie wolf hair; did his throat like cleaning a gun; man got well.
[Illustration: Diphtheria at Pera.]
[Illustration: Buchaton's Death in la Candelaria.]