Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 29.djvu/833

Rh physician, finding that there is no other doctor within a hundred miles, kindly allows the people to call upon him for gratuitous service in his profession. In a few days, as his desire to help those who need him has become known, we are besieged at all hours by patients, who stand in the street and call out, "Is the pill-doctor at home?" He is now so fully employed that his own studies are seriously obstructed, and he has been forced to establish office-hours.

His usefulness is seriously impaired by the fact that a merchant to whom the poor people take their prescriptions to have them forwarded to the apothecary at Nassau is apt to suggest as a substitute a purchase from his stock of strengthening-plasters, or from an invoice of liver-pills which he imported some years ago.

I am surprised to learn from Dr. Mills that in this delightful climate, where the temperature is almost uniform throughout the year, and the thermometer seldom rises above 85° or falls below 80°, there are many cases of consumption. A death from this disease took place in one of the little huts near our house a few hours after our arrival.

We are much pleased that, although our home is close to the street, there is no building opposite, but a vacant lot, planted with cocoanut trees and bananas, and surrounded by an open cast-iron railing, which does not obstruct our view, or cut off the cool sea-breeze which blows continuously.

Our first day on the island ended in a beautiful cloudless evening, with a gentle breeze and a full moon, and as we sat on our veranda and rested after our hard day's work, the sun set and in a few minutes the moon and stars were in full splendor, for we are so far south that the sun drops straight down, and we have no twilight. As we sat and listened to the mocking-birds, which were singing on all sides, and watched the long, graceful, fern-like plumes of the tall cocoanut-trees swaying against the clear sky in the breeze and reflecting the moonlight from their glossy surfaces, a feeling of perfect rest after our long voyage stole over us, and, while everything reminded us of the long miles of water between us and our friends in Baltimore, we felt almost at home in our new abode.

We watched the half-naked negro children at play in our street, and listened with great interest to wild music which came from one of the huts, and was, as we learned next day, the song of friends gathered at the bedside of our dying neighbor; and at last we ate our first meal of pineapples and bananas and sapodillas and fresh cocoanuts, and then turned in, happy in the thought that we could sleep without holding on, and delighted with our first experience of a coral island.