Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1906-08-22

AN UNEASY SICK-BED.
NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS..
oooooooo.

~OO00~0~0~-N~~-~-@1~@
It is hard to be i'll even under the
best appointed circumstances of nurse
and sick-room. How much harder fe-
yer of mind and body can be in adj
from the description, by Andrew Will
son, author of THE Abode of Snow"
of an experience of his own. Mr.. Will
son, travelling in Chinese Thibet, had
long and serious sickness in the lit
tie village of Pu at the foot of one Of
the mountain slopes. There was no
one in the place to care for the invalid
save q MOravian sister, who could not
take him to her own house. So Mr..
Wilson's tent was pitched outside the
village, and for month he was his
own doctor, almost his own nurse
l was fiat on my back in the fierce
rock heat and the weary sound of the
| mountain torrent The apricot trees
| afforded shade, but they harbOred hosts
of sand-fies, which tormented me by
night, while the common black fly kept
me from sleeping during the day. ScOr-
piOnS were all about, both the gray
and the deadly black. 1t was the only
! place in the Himalayas where | heard
of serpents, but they used to glide be-
fore my tent at night, long ones meas
| uring some six feet One was killed
| close to my tent door and brought to
me. l was far too i'll to examine it to
see whether it were poison OF not, but
in either case it was not a pleasant
| thing for half-dead man to see iu
the moonlight.
The position of my tent was very
| lonely. l was forced to make the ser
wants camp a little way off, so l should
not be disturbed by their talking. Sc
weak was l they could hardly hear
when l called. One end of the field
| touched a small forest which harbOred
wild beasts. A company Of Chinese
! Tartars on q pilgrimage hOwled and
sang and danced all the nights through
| Huge, savage Tibetan dogs from lama
| nunnery came down the mOuntainside
and prowled about my tent. One splen-
! did great creature quite reused my af-
| lection until, one night, l awakened to
| find his mouth fumbling at my throat
| He was shot by my servant.
| One moonlight night | had a visitor
/ of another kind which at first puzzled
me not a little l was lying awake in
an exhausted state when a large
strange figure stepped into the moon
shine just in front of my tent. 1t
moved about unsteadily with the
| swaying movement Of q drunken man.
and my first idea was that it was a
| Chinese Tartar. SO let my hand fall
on my revolver box. There was some
thing not human about the figure, and
when it began climbing one of the april
cot-trees in peculiar manner, could
not help exclaiming, goodness! What
| have we nOW|
On this the thing turned with a Zero
| cious groWl. 1t was one of the great
snow bears, from the high mountains
| which seldom visit the villages. Il
| prOWled about, growing, but went of
without molesting me. After this
| had a barricade in front of my tent al
night.
When I recovered l found that the
|! Moravian sisters chief anxiety in re
| gard to me had been the thought OF
how I was to be buried. Ground was
very valuable at Pu, and difficult tt
get hold of, being artificially terraceG
up the mOuntainside. To obtain anJ
for a stranger to occupy would have
been a serious and expensive matter.