With Kitchener in the Soudan: A Story of Atbara and Omdurman

by G. A. Henty

"There was a shed in the garden. Into this I put my horse, and then entered the house.

"Most of the Arab women know something of the dressing of wounds. Saleh's wife sent out the slave, to buy various drugs. Then she got a melon from the garden, cut off the rind, and, mincing the fruit in small pieces, squeezed out the juice and gave it to her husband to drink. When she had done this, she set before me a plate of pounded maize, which was boiling over a little fire of sticks, when we went in.

"'It is your breakfast,' I said.

"She waved her hand.

"'I can cook more,' she said. 'It matters not if we do not eat till sunset.'

"I sat down at once, for indeed, I was famishing. The food had all been exhausted, at the end of the first day's fighting. I had been more than two days without eating a morsel. I have no doubt I ate ravenously, for the woman, without a word, emptied the contents of the pot into my bowl, and then went out and cut another melon for me.

"When the slave woman returned, she boiled some of the herbs, made a sort of poultice of them, and placed it on the wound. Saleh had fallen asleep, the moment he had drunk the melon juice, and did not move while the poultice was being applied.

"The house contained three rooms--the one which served as kitchen and living room; one leading from it on the right, with the curtains hanging before the door (this was Saleh's room); and on the opposite side, the guest chamber. I have not mentioned that there were four or five children, all of whom had been turned out, as soon as we entered; and threatened with terrible punishments, by their mother, if they made any noise.

"When I finished my meal I went into the guest chamber, threw myself down on the angareb there, and slept till sunset. When I awoke, I found that a native doctor had come, and examined Saleh. He had approved of what the woman had done, told told her to continue to poultice the wound, and had given her a small phial, from which she was to pour two drops into the wound, morning and evening. He said, what I could have told her, that her husband was in the hands of Allah, If He willed it, her husband would live.

"Of course, I had seen something of wounds, for in the old times--it seems a lifetime back--when I was, for two years, searching tombs and monuments with the professor, there had been frays between our workmen and bands of robbers; and there were also many cases of injuries, incurred in the work of moving heavy fragments of masonry. Moreover, although I had no actual practice, I had seen a good deal of surgical work; for, when I was at the university, I had some idea of becoming a surgeon, and attended the courses there, and saw a good many operations. I had therefore, of course, a general knowledge of the structure of the human frame, and the position of the arteries.