XXII
Paris,
March 1898.
You would gather from my last letter that we were having a sad and trying time at Luxor, and after I posted to you we had so much more of sadness and sorrow that it seems like a bad dream, and I can't write much about it.
The poor lady died of pyæmia, and a few days later my patient was laid to rest in the little cemetery out in the desert that he loved so well.
All the winter the tourists had been so fit and well up the Nile (fortunately for me), but in January every one seemed to get ill, and they had quite an outbreak of dysentery. It began up at Assouan, but two poor young ladies (travelling with a young brother) became very ill between Assouan and Luxor, and were carried ashore and brought to the hotel. Our night nurse went off to nurse them, and as soon as I was free I had to go straight on to help her, as they were both desperately ill.
It was my first experience of tropical dysentery, and in some ways it seemed almost more like cholera—nothing seemed to check it. A very good physician came up from Cairo, and stayed some days trying everything to save them, and nurse and I were working night and day, but it was no use, and they both died within twenty-four hours of each other.
Then others got bad, and we had to go from room to room doing what we could for them, and wishing we either had half-a-dozen nurses, or else had all our patients in one hospital ward. Gradually the others all began to improve, and we were beginning to think of going home, when I was telegraphed for to go up to Assouan to nurse the Bishop of ——, who was very ill; the nurse who was stationed up there also being laid up with dysentery.
I was not pleased at having to go, as we were just packing up to travel home, clearing up the house, &c., and I was feeling very done up, but I could not well refuse, as there was no other nurse within reach; so I went off by the post boat, and spent most of the two days on board in sleeping, as I did not know how much work might be waiting for me, and I had a good deal to make up in the way of sleep. I find from my diary that between the 16th of January and the 3rd of February I had never had a complete night in bed, and sometimes even the odd hours of sleep were very few and far between.
But when I got to Assouan I found that every one was on the mend, and they hardly needed a nurse, so I stayed only a few days to help (and managed to explore Philæ one afternoon), and then I left again by post boat for Cairo, the doctor putting a lady, who had been very ill with dysentery, under my care, and giving me a little stock of medicines to use at my discretion, as the post boats—unlike the tourist boats—carry no doctor.
We stayed an hour or two at Luxor, so that I managed to collect my baggage and said many good-byes. All the inhabitants—including the servant boys and the donkey boys—seemed to be there to see us off, and they had all been so very kind to me through a very trying winter that I felt as though I had known them for years.