It is insisted that some medicine should be administered internally. "All doctors make sick people swallow medicine," they say; and to conform to custom, and yet do no harm, we give our patient a cup of water in which a little paregoric has been dropped. Then, with a "Trust in Allah!" the foreign doctors retire amid the blessings of the crowd.
A PORTUGUESE PORTAL
Could we have cured but one tenth of the maladies, or in any small way relieved the needless suffering which greets the traveler in Morocco, we should have been happy; but we were not prepared; we lacked both knowledge and medical supplies. It grieved us to play the impostor, yet it was kinder to the people, who in many things are simple as children. To refuse them advice and treatment would have been cruel, however worthless the advice and treatment. Our willingness to serve our doses of paregoric, our injunctions to trust in the one God, pleased and cheered them. That was all that we could hope to accomplish.
"UP TO THE EYES IN DAISIES"
We even do a little veterinary surgery for a wounded horse, a fine gray steed, lamed by a bullet in the leg. The poor beast is held prostrate while the bullet is cut out with my pocket-knife, and the wound is cauterized with red-hot iron. The excitement keeps us from a realizing sense of our situation, and it is only when in the gathering darkness we have returned to our tent that we begin clearly to recognize the fact that these little scenes of such a painful interest are not prepared merely to amuse the curious traveler. There is a stern reality in it all; and the Beni-Zimour who, this very morning, attacked the village and laid low men and horses, are not many miles away.
AN EMPTY TOWN