Here is a very sad case in Bed 18, called “the Gleaners’ Bed,” because it is supported by the Gleaners’ Union of Lambeth: A young man of twenty-five or thirty, blind from his birth, and yet brought to the hospital cruelly slashed in several places with sword and knife; one cut on the right shoulder went through the muscle down to the bone. And this was done only to rob him of the few things he possessed. Had the culprit known that the man was blind, let us hope he would not have been so brutal, but poor Mirzada was on the ground asleep, covered up with a sheet, as is the custom with the natives, and had been attacked in this way before he could escape or beg them to spare him. It was so sad to see him stretched moaning on his bed, with eyes that had never seen the light or the beauty of God’s creation, heart that had never felt, ear that had never heard of the “Light of Life” or the “glory that shall be revealed.” Our Christian assistants sat beside him day by day, and told him of Christ and His love; but he never, so far as we could judge, seemed to grasp the truth for himself, and, when his wounds were healed, left us to beg by the wayside. We pray for Mirzada, “who sitteth by the wayside begging,” that he may yet find the Light! He at least has learnt to bless the mission hospital and the Christian friends in England, through whose charity he can say: “I was a stranger, and ye took me in; sick, and ye visited me.”
The doctor or his assistants may go a long journey up and down the frontier and both sides of the border without coming to a village where they will not get a hearty welcome from some old patient. He will be made to sit down for a little good cheer in the village chauk, that the grateful patient may call his acquaintances round to shake hands with the Daktar Sahib, whose patient he was while in the mission hospital, and with stories about whom he has so often regaled them in the winter evenings.
Chapter VII
From Morning to Night
First duties—Calls for the doctor—Some of the out-patients—Importunate blind—School classes—Operation cases—Untimely visitors—Recreation—Cases to decide.
An Eastern day begins early. As the first streak of dawn lightens the Eastern sky the slumberers are awakened by the long-drawn-out chant of the Muezzin calling to prayer from all the mosques in the city. “God is great, God is great. I give witness there is no God but God. I give witness that Muhammad is the prophet of God. Come to prayer; prayer is better than sleep.” And forthwith every pious Muslim hastily rises, performs the necessary ablutions, and commences the day with ascription of praise to the Creator. The Hindus follow suit: little bells tinkle in their temples as their priests rouse the slumbering Gods, or as the Puritanical Arya Samajist offers his early sacrifice of “Hawan,” or incense. Meanwhile, the church bell calls the little Christian community together for early morning worship, and they unite in prayer and praise before separating, each to his or her own sphere of work for the day. If the missionary desires a morning “quiet time” he must get up early enough to get it in before this, as after morning service the busy round of duties leaves him little leisure till the evening shades close in.
Darya Khan, the “Lord of the Rivers,” the hospital cook, is waiting for the day’s supplies, and reports fifty patients on full diet, twenty on middle, and fifteen on milk diet. So many cases have left the hospital, so many admitted; such a one died last night. And so the supplies for the day are measured out and weighed, and orders given for the purchase of fresh goods as needed.
Then come the ward clerks, with their tale of soiled linen and case sheets to be checked, and clean towels, bandages, bed-linen, and clothes for the in-patients have to be dealt out according to the needs of each one.
This over, the head gardener, ’Alam Khan, or the “Lord of the World,” is standing by with the day’s supply of vegetables and flowers, and these have to be apportioned to the patients in the hospital and to the various members of the staff whose families reside on the premises. He follows with a string of questions, each of which requires due consideration, such as, “Are the mulberries to be shaken yet?” “Where are the young Pipul tree saplings to be planted?” “Some oranges were stolen in the night; would I come and see the footmarks?” “A hostel boy (‘Light of Religion’) was caught among the plum-trees with some fruit in his pocket. Would I punish him?” And so on, as long as one has leisure to listen and adjudicate.