i 4 6 THE LAND OF THE LION 



But these poor fellows must face their daily march, and, 

 with sixty pounds on aching heads, keep up, as best they may. 



Soon as your tent is pitched, and wood and water have 

 come in, tell the headman to call to you all who need 

 "dowa" (medicine) let it be understood at once that you 

 will doctor their ills to the best of your ability, and that 

 you will do so at a certain time, and your clinic will soon 

 be fairly under way. When they come, let them tell their 

 roundabout story in their own way. They often bear, 

 uncomplainingly, very severe pain, that they have had to 

 grow accustomed to, while they make a fuss over a trifle. 

 They will fearlessly and skilfully use a knife themselves 

 often a dirty-bladed one in cutting out a thorn ; but most of 

 them grow evidently nervous if you have to produce a small 

 lancet. We had a gunbearer mauled by a lion. He made no 

 outcry when the great teeth cut his arm and leg, he stoically 

 endured, for six weeks, the pain of dressing, twice daily; 

 but when a medical missionary produced a lancet, in order 

 to open one of the great fang wounds, which had too soon 

 superficially closed, though he was reduced to a skeleton, 

 and had never been without a temperature for six weeks, 

 he vaulted like a flash over the veranda railing where we 

 were sitting, and distanced, over a very rough ground, too, 

 a good runner who tried to catch him. Strained sinews 

 and muscles, boils and blanes, fever, and above all, the 

 natural and inevitable consequences of eating too much 

 meat when they can get it, and eating it almost raw (indeed 

 they never cook any food enough), these are their most 

 common ills. Epsom salts, chlorodyne, in addition to a 

 "Burroughs and Welcome" medicine chest, will be found 

 useful to have at hand. 



Give them time, and close attention, when they come 

 before you, with their disputes and grievances you owe 

 them so much, at least and their point of view is often 

 very interesting, and instructive, too. They have not, 



