Chap. XII. WOMAN WOUNDED. 329 



thing that can be done to keep mind and body employed 

 tends to prevent fever. 



While we were employed in these operations, some of 

 the poor starved people about had been in the habit of 

 crossing the river, and reaping the self-sown mapira, in 

 the old gardens of their countrymen. In the afternoon of 

 the 9th, a canoe came floating down empty, and shortly 

 after a woman was seen swimming near the other side, 

 which was about two hundred yards distant from us. 

 Our native crew manned the boat, and rescued her ; when 

 brought on board, she was found to have an arrow-head, 

 eight or ten inches long, in her back, below the ribs, and 

 slanting up through the diaphragm and left lung, towards 

 the heart — she had been shot from behind when stooping. 

 Air was coming out of the wound, and, there being but 

 an inch of the barbed arrow-head visible, it was thought 

 better not to run the risk of her dying under the 

 operation necessary for its removal ; so we carried her up 

 to her own hut. One of her relatives was less scrupulous, 

 for he cut out the arrow and part of the lung. Mr. 

 Young sent her occasionally portions of native corn, and 

 strange to say found that she not only became well, but 

 stout. The constitution of these people seems to have a 

 wonderful power of self-repair — and it could be no slight 

 privation which had cut off the many thousands that we 

 saw dead around us. 



We regretted that, in consequence of Dr. Meller 

 having now sole medical charge, we could not have his 

 company in our projected trip ; but he found employment 

 in botany and natural history, after the annual sickly 

 season of March, April, and May was over ; and his con- 

 stant presence was not so much required at the ship. 

 Later in the year, when he could be well spared, he went 

 down the river to take up an appointment he had been 

 offered in Madagascar ; but unfortunately was so severely 



