Demarara, March 18.
At my return from our late excursion the first object that attracted my
attention, upon approaching the barracks of the hospital department, was
a string of negroes singing out in the sailors’ cry,——Yeoh-yeoh,
yeoh-yeoh, and hauling at a long rope, towing something heavy round the
corner of the building. Curiosity arrested me, for a moment; when, alas!
I discovered at the end of the cord, the body of my poor horse! who, in
the last night of his master’s absence, had fallen a victim to the
fever, which spares neither man, nor the patient steed. He was now being
dragged away to his grave, and the pause I made brought me only the sad
gratification of casting a look upon his remains.
This is a serious loss to me, less on account of the exorbitant price of
horses in these colonies, than from the extreme difficulty, or perhaps
the impossibility of finding another, at any rate whatever. I had long
waded through the mud before an opportunity offered of providing myself,
and by mere chance, had, at length, been well suited; but I had scarcely
brought my horse into condition fit for riding, before he was snatched
from me, by what is often termed——the seasoning!
It happens, however, that I shall not long feel this privation, as
letters have, at length, arrived from head-quarters, containing orders
for my removal from the coast of Guiana to St. Domingo. This is the
arrangement to which I have been looking from my earliest arrival in
these colonies; but on account of its being so long delayed, and my
having received instructions for continuing here, I had begun to expect
that the hospital staff, already at St. Domingo, had been found
sufficient for the duties of that station, without recalling the
detachment of the medical department serving upon this coast: but, by
the letters which have now reached me, I learn that the direful malady
of these regions has been sadly fatal among the hospital officers at St.
Domingo; that, although the number of troops is considerably decreased,
the medical attendants have suffered so extensively, that strong
reinforcements are necessary, to enable the hospital department to do
justice to the yet remaining multitudes of sick.
In so far as this change of station will afford me an opportunity of
seeing more of the Western World, I shall hail it with satisfaction; but
my heart sorrows at the thought of treading in the steps of my lost
brethren and colleagues,—men, with whom I have lived in habits of
intimacy, and close friendship—partaking of the same perils, eating from
the same dish, and reposing in the same cabin; and notwithstanding I
neither regard the fever as contagious, nor feel the slightest personal
apprehension of disease, still I cannot but experience a mournful
depression, on being called to execute the urgent duties which I may
have to encounter, upon the very spot where my comrades have fallen. Nor
will it be without regret that I shall quit the hospitals of my own
creating, which, after nearly twelve months of anxious exertion, I have
brought into a state well fitted for affording the necessary
accommodations to the sick.