14 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND. 



was a cold place, but anything was better than that horrible 

 steerage. Nevertheless, down into the steerage the doctor would 

 himself go every morning, nor leave it till every soul had gone 

 or been carried on deck before him. He searched the ship for 

 something he could make medicine of. The carpenter's chalk 

 was the only thing that turned up. This he calcined and saved, 

 to be used sparingly. He forced those who were the least sea- 

 sick to become nurses ; convalescents, and those with less danger- 

 ous illness, he placed beds for on the galley and the hen-coops, 

 and made the captain give up his fowls and other delicacies to 

 them. Fortunately fair weather continued, and with sleepless 

 vigilance and strength, as it seemed to him almost miraculously 

 sustained, he continued to examine and send on deck for some 

 hours each day, every one of the three hundred passengers. On 

 the first cholera symptoms appearing, he gave the patient chalk, 

 and continued administering it in small but frequent doses until 

 the spasmodic crisis commenced ; thence he troubled him only 

 with hot fomentations. The third day out a man died and was 

 buried. The captain read the funeral service, and after the 

 body had disappeared beneath the blue water, the doctor took 

 advantage of the solemn moment again to appeal to him. 



" Captain, there are three hundred souls in this ship" 



" Belay that, doctor ; I'll see every soul of 'em in Davy's 

 locker, sir, before I'll put my ship back." 



The doctor said no more, but turned away with a heavy heart 

 to do his duty as best he could. 



I cannot describe the horrors of that passage as he would. 

 Nevertheless, as far as simple numbers can give it, you shall 

 have the result. 



Out of those three hundred souls, before the ship reached 



New York, there died one ; and he, the doctor declared most 



soberly, was a very old man, and half dead with a chronic 



