light from that window there." "I
have come all the way from Kabul because they said the feringi doctor
could cure everything. Why do you not cure me?"

One man refused to budge till I had taken him to see my mother; she
might be able to do something--she must have more skill than I, for
from whom had I learnt? Another went to her to beg her to intercede
with me for him, because he was sure it was want of will, not want
of power, that prevented him gaining his end. At last, when they
are convinced that nothing can be done, it is touching to see them
as they resignedly say, often with tears rolling down their cheeks:
"It is God's will. I will be patient." Then they may begin their weary
trudge home again, or stop in the Bannu bazaar for a few days to beg
some money to get them a lift on a camel for part of the long journey.

A commotion at the door, and a Bannuchi boy of about seven is
carried in on the shoulders of his father, with his hand tied up in
the folds of a turban. "We were crushing sugar-cane in our press,
when my beloved Mir Jahan got his hand in the cogs of the wheel,
and it was all crushed before we could stop the buffalo. Oh! do see
him quick--he is my only son, a piece of my liver!" And the father
bursts into tears. Mir Jahan is chloroformed at once, the bandages
unbound, and a terrible sight we see; the hand has been crushed into
a pulp, but the thumb is only a little cut. That will enable him to
pull the trigger of a rifle when he grows up, and that is what his
father and he consider of great importance. So the thumb is saved,
and the mangled remains of the other fingers removed, and a shapely
stump fashioned. It is fortunate that the Bannuchis have not much
machinery. This sugar-press is almost the only piece they have, and
we get several crushed hands every year as a result, usually because
they let their children play in dangerous proximity to the wheels,
and then leave them to "Qismet" (Fate).

Meanwhile, perhaps, some big chief has come in with several
attendants. He wants to have a special consultation with the doctor,
and has to be treated with as many of the formalities of Oriental
courtesy as the doctor can find time for. He gives some fee for the
hospital, or perhaps may send one or two ox-burdens of wheat or Indian
corn as his contribution to the hospital stores.

The patients are still coming, when a schoolboy comes to say that it
is time for the doctor to take his classes in school. It