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The blood, as a matter of course under this treatment, oozed from the punctures pretty freely, and as long as the slightest indication of blood was visible, so long did the native continue the pinching. However, the whole operation did not occupy more than ten minutes. After that lapse of time the blackfellow got up, said it was all right, and there was an end of the matter. On another occasion we knew of a native being bitten on the great toe, also by a black snake. He was walking to the camp from the fishing ground after sunset when it happened, and as he had still two miles to go after the accident the poison had ample time to get into the circulation. In this case the poison could not be pinched out, as the punctures were in the horny[1] part of the toe. On reaching the camp he was attended to at once, but the poison had been too long in the system to allow of a perfect cure. Certainly, his life was saved, but he could not move out of the camp for two years afterwards without assistance, and the whole of these two years of enforced confinement he was continually breaking out in boils and blotches, which in all cases left very incurable sores and ulcers behind. All the sole of the bitten foot suppurated and came away piecemeal, leaving the bones and tendons of the foot quite bare. He never regained his wonted strength, or even a semblance of it. Although he could walk about a little, it was quite an effort to do so. He wasted and dwindled quietly away without the least pain for a few years more, when he died. At the time of his death he was the veriest skeleton we ever
- ↑ The under portion, as well as a good distance up the sides of the feet and toes of the aborigines, the skin is nearly as hard as a horse's hoof. This merely applies, as, in fact, the whole of this book does, to the unsophisticated aborigines.
