This seemed very unsatisfactory; when to my great relief, a tall young man, in a turban and a brown frock-shaped coat, stepped forward and addressed me in imperfect English. I found he was an Armenian Christian who had been educated in a Missionary boarding school in India, but he had been so long in Kabul that he had nearly forgotten English. He afterwards became my interpreter, and grew very fluent, but at first I had to learn his English before I could understand him; it was quite different from anybody else’s. However—about the patient—I said, “Ask this man if he has any pain.” And then I found that my word “Dard” ought to have been pronounced more like “Dŭrrŭd.” I tried “Dŭrrŭd” on them afterwards, but either they didn’t expect me to know Persian, or else there ought to have been some context to my word, for they looked just as blankly at me as when I said “Dard.” The ordinary Afghan is a very slow-witted person. I found the patient had no pain, and I said,
“Tell him to put out his tongue.”
The patient appeared surprised, and looked somewhat doubtfully at me. I suppose he thought I was jesting in making such a request. However, he put out his tongue: it was quite healthy. I said,
“There is nothing the matter with him;” but the Armenian said,
“Sir, a little you stop—I find out.” He said something in Persian, and the man nodded. What words the Armenian used to enable me to understand what was wrong I do not remember, but I found out eventually that the patient wanted a tonic, for all he suffered from was an inability to manage his many wives. I said, “Tell the man his complaint does not exist in my country; I have no medicines for it.”
There were, I should think, a dozen who came the first day for the same reason. Of other diseases, malarial fevers, eye cases, venereal diseases, coughs and dyspepsia were the commonest. I was not able to finish attending to all the patients in the morning, and returned in the afternoon, finding them still waiting. As the days went by, the number of patients increased to such an extent, that it finally became no small matter to attend to them all, and do my own dispensing. There were Hindustani dispensers, but I was not quite prepared to trust them, till I knew them better.
Miraculous Recovery of the Page Boy.
One day a lad, one of the Court pages, was brought: he was suffering from jaundice. I put the suitable medicine in a bottle, placed it on the table, then turned to examine another patient, mixed his medicine, and put the bottle by the side of the first one. I went on till I had about a dozen bottles ready, then I ordered them to be filled with water, and gave them out. The patients took their medicine and progressed satisfactorily: the Page boy, in particular, rapidly improved. I was naturally pleased and said so to the Armenian. I thought he looked rather strangely at me, and he said—
“Truly God works for the Sir!”
I wondered rather that he should be so impressive; but not for some months after did I know why he was so. Then he told me. It seemed that after I had mixed the Page boy’s medicine and turned away to the second patient, one of the dispensers seeing the bottle on the table ready, as he thought, for use and not quite clean, washed it out and replaced it. It was then filled with water and the boy rapidly became well. The dispenser had not dared to say what he had done, lest I should be angry. There was great wonder and awe at the hospital over that case, and my reputation as a healer of the sick spread rapidly.