Untitled - The Alfred Russel Wallace Website

64 NOTES OF A BOTANIST CHAP.
anything human, and the hand was most like a
turtle's fin.
Whilst this was going on, the relatives of the
poor man kept up a continual wailing, as though he
had been already dead ; and he himself, although
he submitted patiently to our efforts to procure him
relief, had lost all hope of living. He indicated the
spot where he wished to be buried, and gave what
he considered his last directions to his wife about
his children and property. He also sent off a
messenger to his mother and brothers at Tabalosos,
telling them that he was dying, and offering them
his last adieux.
Towards evening, although the pain was still
intense, the beating of the heart had become fuller
and more regular, so that I felt sure the progress
of the poison had been arrested, and I was now
only afraid of mortification supervening
in the c.rm.
I therefore set Chumbi's wife and daughter to grind
a quantity of rice, and enveloped the hand and
wrist in a thick poultice, and had the rest of the
arm fomented with an infusion of aromatic herbs at
short intervals throughout the night. When the
poultice was taken off in the morning,
ated with blood and putrid matter from the wounds,
which had become much enlarged. The swelling
was sensibly diminished, and the arm had become
it was satur-
covered with pustules containing bloody serum,
which we evacuated by puncturing them. A readymade
rice-poultice replaced the one taken off, and
we kept up the fomentation and the poulticing
until, at the end of forty-eight hours, the swelling
had entirely subsided. The blood, besides break-
ing out at the skin, had also got mixed with the