| ACCIDENT TO AN INDIAN. 233
offered. Having little or no intercourse with the
capital, this village was the first which Doctor Ca-
bot's fame had not reached, and our host took me
aside to ask me in confidence whether Doctor Ca-
bot was a real medico ; which fact being easily es-
tablished by my evidence, he wanted the medico
to visit a young Indian whose hand had been man-
gled by a sugar-mill. Doctor Cabot made some in-
quiries, the answers to which led to the conclusion
that it would be necessary to cut off the hand ; but,
unluckily, at the last reduction of our luggage he
had left his amputating instruments behind. He
had a hand-saw for miscellaneous uses, which would
serve in part, and Mr. Catherwood had a large
spring-knife of admirable temper, which Doctor Ca-
bot said would do, but the former flatly objected to
its conversion into a surgical instrument. It had
been purchased at Rome twenty years before, and
in all his journeyings had been his travelling com-
panion ; but after such an operation he would nev-
er be able to use it again. Strong arguments were
urged on both sides, and it became tolerably manifest
that, unless amputation was necessary to save the
boy from dying, the doctor would not get the knife.
Reaching the house, we saw the Indian sitting in
the Sala, the hand torn off to within about an inch of
the wrist and the stump swollen into a great ball six
inches in diameter, perfectly black, and literally alive
with vermin. At the first glance I retreated into
VOL. II.-G G
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