CHAPTER XXIV 
Medical practice at the Lake—Mashabie’s wife—Pay off our boys—Words to me 
—Their farewell to us—Hammar nearly overrun by lions—Adventure with 
lions at dawn—The kill—Intuhe’s song—Stremboom and I go hunting— 
Disturb a lion in the dark—Hammar hunts the lion. 
The people of the lake, hearing that I was a medical man, came 
to me for treatment. There were many patients among them 
suffering from intermittent fever, mostly of a mild type, although 
many had very enlarged spleens. The treatment they were 
put under proved successful, and gained me a great reputation 
amongst the people as a ‘ medicine man ’; and now they came in 
crowds for medicine, always offering payment in kind for 
services rendered. Some brought an ox, others goats, sheep, 
fowls, and corn, so that my practice brought me in more than 
enough to feed the camp on. My professional colleagues of the 
country were very jealous of my reputation, and, by consulting 
the oracular ‘ bones,’ by throwing in the usual manner, declared 
that I was a wizard of the worst type. They denounced me in 
no measured terms, and to prove that my science was an impos¬ 
ture, brought some cases that they considered incurable them¬ 
selves, one a split lower lip, caused by the horn of a buffalo, and 
another case of an incapsuled splinter of wood in a hunter’s leg, 
which all their incantations and mummery had been unable to 
remove. Moremi and some chiefs accompanied the deputation 
to observe my discomfiture, but, as these were very simple cases, 
I begged that they would give me a week’s time to cure them 
in, stipulating for proper accommodation for the patients, and 
that regular diet should be supplied. It is almost needless to 
say the operations proved a success, much to the admiration of 
these unsophisticated people, and, I am glad to relate, gained 
