HOW I BECAME AN IDLER 29 



lived a settler who owned a bullock-cart, and to 

 him he went. About ten o 'clock he returned, and 

 was shortly followed by the man with his lum- 

 bering cart drawn by a couple of bullocks. In 

 this conveyance, suffering much from the heat and 

 dust and joltings on the rough hard road, I was 

 carried back to the settlement. Oxen travel slowly, 

 and we were on the road all day and all night, and 

 only reached our destination when the eastern sky 

 had begun to grow bright, and the swallows from 

 a thousand roosting-places were rising in wide 

 circles into the still, dusky air, making it vocal 

 with their warblings. 



My miserable journey ended at the Mission 

 House of the South American Missionary Society, 

 in the village on the south bank of the river, fac- 

 ing the old town; and the change from the jolting 

 cart to a comfortable bed was an unspeakable 

 relief, and soon induced refreshing sleep. Later 

 in the day, on awakening, I found myself in the 

 hands of a gentleman who was a skillful surgeon 

 as well as a divine, one who had extracted more 

 bullets and mended broken bones than most sur- 

 geons who do not practise on battle-fields. My 

 bullet, however, refused to be extracted, or even 

 found in its hiding-place, and every morning for 

 a fortnight I had a bad quarter of an hour, when 

 my host would present himself in my room with 

 a quiet smile on his lips and holding in his hands 

 a bundle of probes oh, those probes! of all 

 forms, sizes, and materials wood, ivory, steel, 



