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0773 Ruins of Desert Cathay : vol.2
Ruins of Desert Cathay : vol.2 / Page 773 (Color Image)

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doi: 10.20676/00000213
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CIT. XCVII

OPERATION AT LEH   487

hurried up by forced marches across the high Khardong Pass in order to bring me help. Having been trained as a medical missionary at that excellent institution, the Livingstone College in London, and provided with abundant surgical experience by his exacting but beneficent labours at Leh, he recognized at the first examination that the toes of my right foot had commenced to mortify and were more or less doomed. This was sad news, yet a relief from more serious apprehension. If only I could have obtained before the assurance that gangrene of this sort was not likely to spread ! The injuries received by the toes of the left foot were far less serious and would cause no permanent loss.

Owing to my exhausted condition, due largely to the exertions and hardships which had preceded the accident and, no doubt, predisposed me for the latter by weakening my powers of resistance, my kindly Samaritan decided to postpone the operation necessary on my right foot until we reached Leh. But the fatigue of the four marches which brought us there was much relieved by his friendly ministrations and cheering company. I reached Leh on October I2th, having travelled nearly three hundred miles since my work closed at the foot of the Yangi Dawan.

Two days later Mr. Schmitt successfully effected the operation on my right foot, all the toes of which had to be amputated either completely or in their upper joints. His great kindness and that of his devoted helpmate and his fellow-missionaries provided me with much-needed corn-forts, while in the Agency building I found an elegantly furnished sick-room. From its veranda I caught glimpses of the picturesque castle and little town of Leh, lit up by autumnal sunshine in the midst of high barren ranges. It was a new and fascinating world to me, this corner of Western Tibet, and I much regretted that my glimpses of it were so exceedingly limited.

The wounds left after the amputation were very painful and healed with extreme slowness. The risk of finding the Zoji-la Pass on the route to Kashmir closed by snow urged an early departure from Leh if I were to reach India before next spring. But nearly three weeks passed