At night I always took off the
bandages, as the constant impediment to the circulation they
occasioned, caused the feet to swell; yet at night we felt the
weight and pressure even more than during the day: our legs seemed
for a long time never to get rest; we could not move them about,
and when in our sleep we turned from one side to the other, the
links, by striking the bone of the leg, caused such acute pain as
to awake us at once. Though after a time we got more accustomed to
them, and could walk about our small inclosure with more ease, still
every now and then we had to remain quiet for some days, as the
legs got sore, and small ulcers appeared on the parts where the
greatest pressure bore. Even since they have been removed, for
months my legs were weaker than before, the ankles smaller, and the
feet somewhat enlarged.
The evening we were put in chains we had to cut open our trousers
as the only way of getting them off. During their former captivity
at Magdala, Messrs. Cameron, Stern and others, either wore petticoats
or native drawers, which they had been taught to pass between the
leg and the chain. But we had no material at hand to make the first,
and as for passing even the thinnest cambric through the rings in
the swollen condition of the limb, that was quite out of the question.
Necessity, it is said, is the mother of invention: at all events I
invented the "Magdala trousers.
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