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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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that * he ropes of a balloon confine the progress ei that machine upwards . "" Reason and resolution urged me on , although every instaut the pain increased as I descended ; and at the depth of six or seven fathoms , 1 felt a sensation in my ears like that produced by the explosion of a gun ; at the same moment I
lost all sense of pain , and afterwards reached the bottom , which I explored with a facility that J had thought unattainable . Unfortuuately , I met with no oysters to reward my perseverance ; and as I found myself exhausted for want of air * I seized hold of a stone to prove that I had reached the bottom at eight fathoms water , and rose to the top with a
triumph as great as if I had obtained a treasure . I no sooner found myself on the surface than I became sensible of what had happened to my eyes ears , and mouth ; I was literally bleeding from each of these , though wholly unconscious of it . But now was the greatest danger in diving , as the sharks , mantas , and tintereros , have an astonishingly quick
scent of blood . " Of the sharks , however , ( under the stimulus of hope , ) a diver thinks nothing . " I have myself descended , " says Lieut . Hardy , " when the horizon was filled with the projecting fins of sharks rising above the surface of the water ; and although armed only in the way I have described , " ( viz . with a stick sharpened at both ends , the better
to hold open the creature ' s expanded jaws , ) ct I thought myself perfectly secure from molestation ; notwithstanding they were swimming round me in all directions at not a greater distance than a few fathoms , 1 continued my pursuits ¦ with the greatest sang-froid . " Reason whispers that even a stick with two points might have failed , but nothing of this sort assails the stout heart of a
diver when under water . I should no more be capable in my cool moments of jeflectipn , " says Lieutenant Hardy , " braving this inconceivably horrid danger , than of entering the tiger ' s den before his breakfast at Exeter Change . " A certain Dou Pablo , however , is described as having had moments of iC cool reflection' * ( even ia cold immersion ) qu the
subject of a tiiiterero that had taken station three or four yards above him . ** A double-pointed stick is a useless weapon against a tintereVo , as its mouth is of such enormous dimensions , that both man and stick would be swallowed together . He . therefore felt himself rather nervous , as his return was now completely intercepted . He described him ftjie Vinter £ ro to wit , ' who was hovering over
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him as a hawk would follow a bird *) a-s having large round and inflamed eyes , apparently just ready to dart from their sockets with eagerness , and a mouth ( at the recollection of which he still shuddered ) that was continually opening and shutting , as if the monster were already in imagination devouriug his victim , or at least that the contemplation of his
prey imparted a foretaste of the gout . " Two alternatives now presented themselves to the mind of Don Pablo ; one to suffer himself to be drowned , the other to be eaten . On a sudden he recollected that on one side of the rock was a bed of sand ; he reached the spot , stirred up the sand with his pointed stick , clouded the water , and thus rose to the surface in safety , before he was completely exhausted . " Fortunately he rose close to the boats , " and his friends seeing him in such a state , and knowing that an enemy was at hand , * ' jumped overboard , as is the practice , to frighten the creature by splashing the water ; " after which " Don Pablo was taken into the boat more dead
than alive . " ( P . 259 . ) Next to Lieut . Hardy ' s practice in diving , his practice in the healing art is most worthy of notice ; he avows , indeed , from the first , that he has ever had " some propensity towards quackery , " and that he had even iC studied enough of physic * ' to give him ' * a general outline of ordinary complaints . "
Very early in his pilgrimage we find him " setting to work with an emetic" upon a poor man who suffered from a cold and bilious attack ; after which he nearly frightened the life out of a young lady , with " delicate small features , and full black eyes , " leaving her , however , by way of compensation , " a few simple doses of medicine . " ( Vide p . 114 , for
the young lady s case . ) At Sonora , he cured some and washed some , ( for " the sick are beyoud measure dirty in their habits , " ) and at Oposura , where he was detained by " a low nervous affection , " in addition to an
attack on the chest , he cured every body , for a length of time , but himself . " Of my materia niedica , " says Lieut . Hardy , c < it may be well to state that charcoal , which I prepare with soap ., formed the chief ingredient , both for indigestion , heartburn , and pain in the shoulders . "—
" In putrid fevers there is no medicine so efficacious and sure . " c < Pain which many people have in the shoulders and neck , yields to charcoal . Ditto the bite of a rattle - snake to an external application ( the charcoal being made into a poultice with rice ) . The patient in this latter case « ' felt a sensation of heat
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868 Monthly Report of General Literature .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1829, page 868, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2579/page/52/
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