HOME-SICKXESS. 1G7 



gunshot injury of one of the larger joints was to be treated in one 

 of our general hospitals by being constantly kept in a current of 

 heated air, uncovered and even unwashed. The experiment, how- 

 ever, would be worth a trial in cases where amputation is unpractic- 

 able and where death is the probable result. 



It is a common saying amongst white men who have had to deal 

 with these natives, that when a man makes up his mind to die he 

 assuredly will, even although apparently in robust health. Such 

 cases are not unusual on board labour-ships on their way to the 

 Queensland and Fiji plantations, and they may be regarded as of 

 the nature of nostalgic melancholy or home-sickness. It is in truth 

 Iiard to imagine the train of thoughts which must pass through the 

 simple mind of a native when his island-home disappears below the 

 horizon, and he is borne away to a strange land from which, it may 

 be, some of his acquaintances have never returned. Even the 

 attractions of the box of trade that his servitude will earn may be 

 insufficient to keep down the undefined apprehensions which fill his 

 breast; and the knowledge of the impossibility of seeking his friends 

 or his island again for what must appear to him an indefinite 

 period may only serve to strengthen his longing for home. Here 

 we have that disease with which the army surgeons of Europe were 

 familiar, and which has been most recently exhibited amongst the 

 Italian troops stationed at Masowah on the coast of the Ked Sea. 

 It is that " strange disease " which Dr. Livingstone so pathetically 

 describes in his " Last Journals," as affecting the victims of the 

 slave-trade in the lake region of Africa. I remember on one occa- 

 sion, when visiting a labour-vessel that had arrived in Treasury 

 Harbour, my attention was drawn by the mate to a native of New 

 Ireland who had eaten little for some days and was looking over 

 the side of the ship towards the shore in a depressed and moody 

 manner. I saw that the thoughts of the poor fellow were in reality 

 far away ; and I passed on to see some of the other sick men. The 

 next morning this New Ireland native was missincr and in the 

 evening his body was found washed up on the beach. ... I 

 would refer my readers to some interesting remarks on this subject 

 from the pen of ]\Ir. Komilly,' whose official experience in the 

 Western Pacific enables him to write with authority. The Solomon 

 Islanders, according to this author, are less affected by this disease 

 than those of other groups ; whilst the New Hebrides natives 



^ " The Western Pacific and New Guinea." London, 188G : pp. 1(5, 177. 



