HUNTING WITH DOGS. 161 



would lull for a minute, and a soft hot blast come 

 over us, just as if fresh from the mouth of some 

 furnace. Then the fresh breeze rising would blow 

 it off again. These puffs of hot wind recurred at 

 long intervals throughout the day, and were, Stepan 

 assured me, sure precursors of fever. Whether 

 they really were so, or whether his croaking 

 frightened us into it, I don't know, but next day 

 we were certainly extremely ill. Stepan had 

 genuine fever, and as all Russians and Tscherkesses 

 do, lay down at once and gave the fever full 

 play. 



I had read somewhere of a doctor on the African 

 coast who used to get his fever patients into a 

 room with doors and windows shut, and there make 

 them have the gloves on with him for a quarter of 

 an hour, after which the fever left them. I owe 

 that athletic doctor my best thanks for his example, 

 and hereby tender them ; for though I had no 

 gloves, and no one to use them upon if I had. I 

 acted on what seemed to me the principle of his 

 cure, and, selecting the stiffest bit of country 

 I knew, started on a solitary hunt with the 

 dogs. At first I reeled, and my knees gave under 

 me at every stride. I was sick and blind and 

 dizzy, and felt altogether worse than I ever did, 

 even after the first half-mile of a Kossall paper 

 chase as a boy ; but gradually things improved, as 

 they always do if you stick to it, and I had the 



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