I mentioned the case of the little girl who had died to a medical friend who happened to be spending the season at Luxor. In his opinion the poison from the scorpion was not the cause of the death; but when picking at the little wound some poisonous matter must have got in and caused blood-poisoning.

I went out the next season more fully provided with medical stores, and our good doctor in Haslemere had given me some hints as to bandaging a wound and applying first-aid treatment. I had not long to wait before putting my freshly acquired knowledge to a test. One of the guards at the Hatshepsu temple trod with his naked foot on a jagged bottle end which some careless picnickers had left there. It was a ghastly wound, and though I told the man I would pay for a donkey to take him to Luxor, and would see that he lost no wages while he might be laid up, he would not go, and preferred taking the risk of losing his foot. As all persuasion failed, I set to work to do my best. I washed his foot and bandaged it with the antiseptic material I had, and sent him home with a broomstick for a crutch. He and the broomstick appeared early next morning to have the wound dressed, and his visits were repeated twice daily for the best part of a week. The rapidity with which that foot healed up made me doubt as to whether I had not missed my vocation. No London surgeon could have effected a cure as rapidly with all his experience and his up-to-date appliances. But lest I should become too conceited, I reflected that the London surgeon had neither the desert air to operate in, nor had he as abstemious patients as mine was. No strong drinks had ever heated his blood, and his simple fare was sufficient for the easy work he had to do, but not enough to produce the acids of the often overfed Britisher.

Now this man was grateful for the trouble I had taken, and I’ll be bound to say, more so than many London hospital patients who take all that is gratuitously done for them as a matter of course.

He tried to show his gratitude one day in a manner I had to decline. I found him shaving the head of his fellow-guard with pieces of broken glass. I watched him for some time performing this dry shave: he would break a piece off a bottle and then jag the sharp edge over his mate’s skull. When the edge was blunted, he would break off another piece of glass and continue the operation, till finally the head appeared as free of hair as a billiard ball. It took the best part of an afternoon to complete the job to his satisfaction. It was past the season when visitors to the temple might be expected, and time was therefore of no object. Seeing that my hair wanted cutting badly, my late patient seriously offered to shave my head in like manner.

I dislike long hair, especially in hot weather, but I thought I might dislike the broken glass still more. Neither I nor my assistant from Paris wished to lose a whole day by going to Luxor to visit the hairdresser, and the latter decided that he would let our cook try his hand on his head. Our cook appeared to be as expert a barber as the temple guard, and time being rather more valuable to him, he cleared the hair off my companion’s head very quickly.

Even this did not encourage me to submit to the operation, and I reflected that as my time was more valuable than that of a native Luxor barber, I would get a barber from thence to come to me. I also prefer these artists in hair to use my own brushes to any they may themselves possess. The brushes were, however, of little use, for there was nothing to brush for a fortnight after the Luxor hairdresser’s visit.

THE HAIRDRESSER

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