MY EXPERIENCES AS AN INMATE OF A NATIVE HOSPITAL

I HAD placed my bed on a rock high enough to get the benefit of any breath of cooler air which the north breeze might bring; the nightly drop in the temperature usual in the desert does not obtain in like manner on the edge of the Nile. Our exalted position on the roof of Edfu temple had been conducive to sleep, and during the first three nights I slept well, perched up on my rock. Strange dreams, however, disturbed the fourth night. My identity got hopelessly mixed up with that of Horus; the steam-launch and the ship I had copied at Edfu temple became a composite craft, with the lassoed hippopotamus serving as a drag anchor. I resented the anxiety shown by the goddess in the prow to meet the handsome young king on the bank, and felt I was handicapped in my courtship by having a hawk’s head. My divinity was outweighed by the good looks of the mortal, and I was preparing to use my spear in as effective a manner on him as I had on the hippopotamus, when the boat bumped heavily against the bank and awoke me.

I was shivering on the rock, having fallen out of my bed, and was soon conscious enough to know that271 I had fever. I never sleep out of doors without having a blanket handy to pull over me in case of a sudden drop in the temperature, and I made use of it now. I could not trust myself to climb down the rock and get to the more sheltered place of my companions, nor could I make any one hear me. Slowly the night went by, shivering fits alternating with fantastic dreams—yet no inclination to rise came with the dawn. I heard shouts from below that breakfast was ready, but all the breakfast I wanted was a dose of quinine. My friend climbed up bringing me the drug, and was anxious to see what was the matter. Thinking it was a touch of the malarious fever which for years I had been subject to, I hoped that in a day or two I should be all right again. I could not, however, remain where I lay, for as the sun got up, so my rock became untenable. Getting into the shade of the tomb, which we called our living-room, ways and means were discussed, I acquiescing in whatever my friend proposed.

Assuan was the nearest place where a doctor could be found, and a four-mile ride would take us to the nearest station on the line. A train left about two o’clock, and donkeys might be obtainable at the nearest village. We drifted down the Nile to the nearest spot from which we could ride to the station, and while writing these lines that ride comes back to me as a horrible nightmare. The midday sun of June in Upper Egypt is carefully avoided by those in the best of health, even when a well-saddled donkey is obtainable. But ill as I was, with nothing but a sack of straw for a saddle, the trials of that ride are indescribable. My sketching272 umbrella and pith helmet were a protection from the direct rays of the sun, but none from the scorching heat which rose from the baked soil. When we left the sandstone rocks on our right we got on to the cultivated land, and I could see the little station, across the plain, trembling in the heated air. I managed somehow to get there without tumbling off the straw sack, and I had that sack taken off my donkey to use it as a pillow on the station floor. Some fellaheen were lying about on the flags, and even they seemed overcome with the oven-like heat of the station, on the flat roof of which the vertical rays of the sun had been beating.

The train service in Upper Egypt is excellent while the tourist season is on; but, as may be supposed, few trains crawl along the desert track in midsummer. Happily there is generally one first-class car attached, on the chance of some official being obliged to make a journey, and in this car there is often a sunk well in the floor, which serves as a small ice cellar. I had at other times unfavourably contrasted the luxuriousness of the official car with the cattle trucks which seemed good enough for the natives. I forgave them readily enough now, while I greedily drank of the cold water obtainable by means of the ice cellar. Fortunately, also, one decent hotel remains open at Assuan after the more luxurious ones put up their shutters. I could, therefore, look forward to a comfortable bed after the five long hours of the train journey.
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THE VILLAGE OF MARG
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273 When the proprietor seemed satisfied that I had neither the plague nor cholera, a room was got ready for me, and the only European doctor then in Assuan was soon at my bedside. He was a kind-hearted Swiss missionary, who had still four days to remain here before he left for Jerusalem, and should I not be well enough to move then, the permanent medical man at the dam could be sent for from Shellal. He said I was down with sunstroke, and ordered an ice-bag to be put to my head, and told me I could put another on my chest if I liked. He looked in again about midnight, and several Englishmen also called to offer any assistance they could give. Who they were and what they said I only found out when I returned to Egypt the following season. One sentence, however, I understood, and that was that the thermometer had reached 124 degrees in the shade during the afternoon. I was also conscious enough, when left alone, of a cutting pain in the right side of my chest, and decided to dispense with the ice-bag there until I knew what this pain meant. I heard voices in another room, and a declaration of ‘no trumps,’ also an argument about ‘going diamonds,’ and I felt a certain comfort that countrymen of mine were near at hand.

While I lay awake that night a curious sensation that I was two people got hold of me. Was it I or my double who felt this cutting pain? And whose turn was it to take the medicine the doctor had left? It was very nasty, and I rather resented that my double had not fairly shared in the taste. The Ka (which the ancient Egyptians believed was born with the body, as distinct from the soul) served as a guardian spirit or ‘double,’ who accompanied the mortal during his lifetime and tended to his wants after death as long as his remains were preserved in their mummy state. One of274 us must be this Ka, I thought; and whether I or the other fellow was the ‘double’ exercised what little mind I could bring to bear on the subject.

The Swiss missionary came early the next day, and was evidently not satisfied that sunstroke was entirely my complaint. He sounded my chest, and called out, ‘Oh, it is pleurisy.’ He seemed very excited, and said that, though occupied most of his time with people’s bodies, it was their souls which concerned him most. ‘As a doctor I can give you no hope, but as a missionary I can tell you that everything is possible with God. What is your name?’ I told him this, and, startled as I was, I still puzzled whether the name applied to me or to my ‘double.’ I can just recall the good man going down on his knees, and also his loud and earnest prayers; but owing to my semi-delirious state I can recall nothing of the latter but the good man’s foreign accent.

Why pleurisy should have so much alarmed him I cannot say, as I can recall many who have got the better of it. One good thing about it was that I could be attended to by the hotel servants, who up till that time would not answer my bell; they evidently were not satisfied till then that I was not down with cholera. The fever abated somewhat with the new treatment, and I was able to recognise Weigall and one or two other acquaintances who looked in. The doctor was most attentive, and advised my going with him as far as Assiout, where there is a good hospital run by the American Mission. He called in the native medical man to get a second opinion as to whether I could do275 the journey, and between the two of them it was decided that I had better risk the journey than risk remaining in the terrible heat of Assuan without any means of proper nursing.

The Swiss doctor would accompany me as far as Assiout, and he would wire to the mission to have me met at the station and take me to the hospital.

We left Assuan after I had been there four days, and a friend who was a manager of the line got a sleeping-car put on to the train. We started in the morning, and after a thirteen-hour journey we reached Assiout in the dead of night. Here I had to part company with the Swiss doctor, who was on his way to Jerusalem. Now, whether the telegram ever reached the mission or not I can’t say; anyhow, the doctor looked in vain for any one connected with the hospital. A good Samaritan in the shape of a Scot, connected with the government, had fortunately travelled down in the same train, and by good luck Assiout was his destination also. I can recall his carrying me to a carriage, and I can also recall his slapping the cheek of a native who tried to force his way in while he clamoured for baksheesh.

He rang up the hall-porter at the hospital, when we reached it, and asked if I was not expected. The porter knew nothing about it, and said every one had retired for the night; there was, however, an empty bed in the room kept for occasional paying patients. I was then placed on that bed while the porter was sent to inform the head of the mission of my arrival. On his return he told us that the hakim was dressing and would be down in a few minutes; there was therefore no276 occasion for the Scotsman, who had been such a friend in need, to wait any longer. It was then about one o’clock, and I lay on that bed till half-past seven in the morning before I saw another soul except that porter, and he kept out of my way as much as he could, for I don’t believe he ever went to the doctor’s rooms.

Never shall I forget that night, and how I regretted that I had not spent it in the train and gone to a hospital in Cairo. The porter snored in the passage until it was time for him to give out doses to the patients, and then he rang a bell just over the entrance to my room and bawled out the names of those who were to take their medicine. The watchmen in th............