How I became an Idler. 29 



membered that ou our side of the river there 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 lumbering 

 cart drawn by a couple of bullocks. In this convey- 

 ance, 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 bad begun to 

 grow bright, and the swallows from a thousand 

 roosting-^jlaces were rising in wide circles into 

 the still, dusky air, making it vocal with their 

 warblinfifs. 



My miserable journey ended at the Mission 

 House of the South American Missionary Society, 

 in the village on the south bank of the river, 

 facing the old town ; and the change from the 

 jolting cart to a comfortable l^ed was an un- 

 speakable relief, and soon induced refreshing sleep. 

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

 the hands of a gentleman who was a skilful 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, 



