We halted a few miles from the market town
of Tschelga, at a place called Wali Dabba. Here we had to exchange
bearers and consequently to wait several days till the new ones
arrived, or anything like order could be introduced. From that day
my troubles began.
I was at all hours of the day surrounded by an importuning crowd,
of all ages and sexes, afflicted by the many ills that flesh is
heir to. I had no more privacy, and no more rest. Did I leave our
camp with my gun in search of game, a clamorous crowd followed me.
On the march, at every halt from Wali Dabba to Theodore's camp in
Damot, I heard nothing else from sunrise to sunset but the incessant
cries of "_Abiet, abiet; medanite, medanite_." [Footnote: "Lord
Master, medicine, medicine."] I did my best; I attended at any hour
of the day those who would benefit from a few doses of medicine.
But this did not satisfy the great majority, composed of old
syphilitic cases, nor the leper, nor those suffering from elephantiasis,
the epileptic, the scrofulous, or those who had been mutilated at
the hands of the cruel Gallas. Day after day the crowd of patients
increased; those who had met with refusal remained in the hope that
on another day the "Hakeem's" boxes of unheard-of medicine might
be opened, for them also. New ones daily poured in. The many cures
of simple cases that I had been able to accomplish spread my fame
far and wide, and even reached my countrymen at Magdala, who heard
that an English Hakeem had arrived, who could break bones and
instantly set them, so that the individual operated upon walked
away like the paralytic in Holy Writ.
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