ACCIDENT TO AN INDIAN. 233 



offered. Having little or no intercourse with the 

 capital, this village v^as the first which Doctor Ca- 

 bot's fame had not reached, and our host took me 

 aside to ask me in confidence whether Doctor Ca- 

 bot was a real medico ; which fact being easily es- 

 tabhshed by my evidence, he wanted the medico 

 to visit a young Indian whose hand had been man- 

 gled by a sugar-mill. Doctor Cabot made some in- 

 quiries, the answers to which led to the conclusion 

 that it would be necessary to cut off the hand ; but, 

 unluckily, at the last reduction of our luggage he 

 had left his amputating instruments behind. He 

 had a hand-saw for miscellaneous uses, which would 

 serve in part, and Mr. Catherwood had a large 

 spring-knife of admirable temper, which Doctor Ca- 

 bot said would do, but the former flatly objected to 

 its conversion into a surgical instrument. It had 

 been purchased at Rome twenty years before, and 

 in all his journeyings had been his travelling com- 

 panion ; but after such an operation he would nev- 

 er be able to use it again. Strong arguments were 

 urged on both sides, and it became tolerably manifest 

 that, unless amputation was necessary to save the 

 boy from dying, the doctor would not get the knife. 



Reaching the house, we saw the Indian sitting in 

 the sala, the hand torn off to within about an inch of 

 the wrist, and the stump swollen into a great ball six 

 inches in diameter, perfectly black, and literally alive 

 with vermin. At the first glance I retreated into 



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