Much As This
Gentleman's Acquaintance Had Been Of Service To Me On That Occasion, A
Good Deal Took Place Now To Detract From It.
At a visit which he paid me
soon after, he happened to see my small stock of medicines, the
Same
that I had in my Nubian journey, during which it never was touched, some
emetics and purges only having been used whilst I staid at Djidda and
Mekka; I had therefore half a pound of good bark in my medicine sack,
untouched. Several persons of the Pasha's court were at this time ill of
fevers; Tousoun Pasha himself was in an indifferent state of health, and
his physician had few medicines fit for such cases. He begged of me the
bark, which I gave him, as I was then in good health, and thought myself
already in the vicinity of Egypt, where I hoped to arrive in about two
months. I owed him, moreover, some obligations, and was glad to testify
my gratitude. Two days after I had cause to repent of my liberality; for
I was attacked by a fever, which soon took a very serious turn. As it
was intermittent, I wished to take bark; but when I asked the physician
for some of it, he assured me that he had already distributed the last
dram, and he brought me, instead of it, some of the powder of the
Gentiana, which had lost all its virtue from age. My fever thus
increased, accompanied by daily and repeated vomiting, and profuse
sweats, being for the whole first month quotidian. The emetics I took
proved of no service; and after having from want of bark gone through
the course of medicines I thought applicable to the case, and being very
seldom favoured with a visit from my friend Yahya Effendi, I left my
disease to nature. After the first month, there was an interval of a
week's repose, of which had I been able to profit by taking bark, my
disorder would, no doubt, have been overcome; but it had abated only to
return with greater violence, and now became a tertian fever, while the
vomiting still continued, accompanied by occasional faintings, and ended
in a total prostration of strength. I was now unable to rise from my
carpet, without the assistance of my slave, a poor fellow, who by habit
[p.319] and nature was more fitted to take care of a camel, than to
nurse his drooping master.
I had by this time lost all hope of returning to Egypt, and had prepared
myself for dying here. Despondency had seized me, from an apprehension
that, if the news of my death should arrive in England, my whole Hedjaz
journey would, perhaps, be condemned as the unauthorised act of an
imprudent, or at least over-zealous missionary; and I had neither books,
nor any society, to divert my mind from such reflections: one book only
was in my possession, a pocket edition of Milton, which Captain Boag, at
Djidda, had kindly permitted me to take from his cabin-library, and this
I must admit was now worth a whole shelf full of others.
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Words from 122120 to 122647
of 182297
