The barriers dividing the world of ideas,
sensations, and realities seemed to have been thrown down, and all
rushed into my brain like a set of hungry foxhounds. The horror of
effort and the futility of endeavor permeated my very soul. My weary,
helpless brain was filled with hordes of unruly imaginings; I was
masterless, panic-driven, maddened, and had to abide for weeks--yea,
months--with a fever-haunted soul occupying a fever-rent and weakened
body.
At Yuen-nan-fu, whither I arrived in due course after considerable
struggling, dysentery laid me up again, and threatened to pull me nearer
to the last great brink. For weeks, as the guest of my friend, Mr. C.A.
Fleischmann, I stayed here recuperating, and subsequently, on the advice
of my medical attendant, Dr. A. Feray, I went back to Tong-ch'uan-fu,
among the mountains, and spent several happy months with Mr. and Mrs.
Evans.
Had it not been for their brotherly and sisterly zeal in nursing me,
which never flagged throughout my illness, future travelers might have
been able to point to a little grave-mound on the hill-tops, and have
given a chance thought to an adventurer whom the fates had handled
roughly. But there was more in this than I could see; my destiny was
then slowly shaping.
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