"Dear Brother,--The bearer wants your advice. I do not know the nature of the case. He has no money, and you have plenty, so you are well met."
He was applied to once to perform a serious operation on a tradesman's wife; the fee agreed upon was twenty guineas. He heard no more of the case for two months; at the end of which time he was called upon to perform it. In the course of his attendance, he found out that the cause of the delay had been the difficulty under which the patient's husband had laboured to raise the money; and that they were worthy people, who had been unfortunate, and were by no means able to support the expense of such an affliction. "I sent back to the husband nineteen guineas, and kept the twentieth," said he, "that they might not be hurt with an idea of too great obligation. It somewhat more than paid me for the expense I had been at in the business."
The Burman war-boat is formed of the trunk of the magnificent teak tree, first roughly shaped, and then expanded by means of fire, until it attains sufficient width to admit two people, sitting abreast. On this a gunwale, rising a foot above the water, is fixed, and the stem and stern taper to a point, the latter being much higher than the other, and ornamented with fret-work and gilding. On the bow is placed a gun, sometimes of a nine-pounder calibre, but generally smaller, and the centre of the boat is occupied by the rowers, varying in number from twenty to a hundred, who in the large boats use the oar, and in the small ones the paddle. A war-boat in motion is a very pleasing object. The rapidity with which it moves, its lightness, and small surface above the water, the uniform pulling of the oar falling in cadence with the songs of the boatmen, who, taking the lead from one of their number, join in chorus, and keep time with the dip of their oars; the rich gilding which adorns the boat, and the neat, uniform dress of the crew, place it, to the eye of a stranger, in a curious and interesting point of view: and in regard to appearance, induces him, when contrasting it with an English boat, to give the former the preference. In point of swiftness, our best men-of-war boats could not compete with them; and of this superiority they generally availed themselves when an action was impending.