[A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone’s Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries by David Livingstone]@TWC D-Link bookA Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone’s Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries CHAPTER XII 26/48
In addition to their daily routine work of the ship, the three stokers, one sailor, and one carpenter--now our complement--were encouraged to hunt for guinea-fowl, which in June, when the water inland is dried up, come in large flocks to the river's banks, and roost on the trees at night. Everything that can be done to keep mind and body employed tends to prevent fever. While we were employed in these operations, some of the poor starved people about had been in the habit of crossing the river, and reaping the self-sown mapira, in the old gardens of their countrymen.
In the afternoon of the 9th, a canoe came floating down empty, and shortly after a woman was seen swimming near the other side, which was about two hundred yards distant from us.
Our native crew manned the boat, and rescued her; when brought on board, she was found to have an arrow-head, eight or ten inches long, in her back, below the ribs, and slanting up through the diaphragm and left lung, towards the heart--she had been shot from behind when stooping.
Air was coming out of the wound, and, there being but an inch of the barbed arrow-head visible, it was thought better not to run the risk of her dying under the operation necessary for its removal; so we carried her up to her own hut.
One of her relatives was less scrupulous, for he cut out the arrow and part of the lung.
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