ould one of Lee's
pills defend me from it, even for two days? I preferred to eat and drink
and sleep correctly, and then trust to my good fortune and to Him who
controlled it, rather than to nauseous and poisonous medicine. And I had
my choice, and with it a blessed reward. I was in the low country of
North and South Carolina and Virginia six months or more, and often and
again much exposed to disease, and yet I never had a sick day while I
remained there. And yet, as I have before intimated, I never took a
particle of medicine during the whole time.

Once, indeed, I was beguiled into the foolish habit of using French
brandy with my dinner, under the idea that it would promote digestion.
But I did not continue it long; and I verily believe that it did me more
harm than good while I used it; for I have at no other period of my life
suffered so much from dyspeptic tendencies as during the summer which
followed this temporary indulgence of brandy with my dinner.

During my wanderings in the South, I had, much of the time, a fellow
traveller, who, though he took no medicine, was less cautious than
myself, and less fortunate. Perhaps his very recklessness served as a
warning to me. In truth, without being much of a theologian, I have
sometimes thought that the errors of mankind were intended in the divine
plan--at least in part--for this very end. Happy, then, if this is so,
are they who make a wise use of them!

CHAPTER X.

DR. SOLOMON AND HIS PATIENT.

I have said that my fellow traveller was less cautious than myself, and
have intimated much more. He was in some respects cautious, and yet in
others absolutely reckless. When hot and thirsty, for example, instead
of just rinsing out his mouth and swallowing a very little water, he
would half-fill his stomach with some of that semi-putrid stuff, ycleped
water, which you often find in Virginia and the Carolinas; and when
hungry, he would eat almost any thing he could lay hold of, and in
almost any quantity, as well as at almost any hours, whether seasonable
or unseasonable.

This course of conduct seemed to answer very well for a few months; but
a day of retribution at last came. He was then in Norfolk, in Virginia.
I had been absent from the place a few weeks, and on my return found him
sick with a fever, and without such assistance as was absolutely and
indispensably necessary. There were Yankees in the place in great
numbers, and some of them were his person