Evidently I was seized with some malarious disorder. Anxious to know what I could do for myself in the way of medicine, I got the Dispensatory and began a search for febrifuges. I could not hope to find Peruvian bark on the island as this region was, I conceived, out of its habitat. However, I made pencil notes of everything I could find mentioned as a febrifuge. Among other things I noted that it was customary in the Campagna near Rome for the fever-stricken inhabitants to make a sort of tea of sliced lemons, which was said to cure the Campagna fever. Now I remembered to have seen wild limes growing along the upper part of the creek, and thought if I could get strength enough to gather some the next day I would try an infusion of them.
That night I slept pretty well, and in the morning got up feeling fairly well. But warned by yesterday’s experience, I dreaded a recurrence of the chill and fever, either that day or the next. So I went immediately and gathered a quantity of the ripest of the limes. These I sliced thin with my knife and poured boiling water over them in a small vessel, and set them aside to steep. As soon as the infusion was cold I took a small sip to see what the effect would be. I found no bad consequences, and in an hour took another larger sip. This I kept up every hour all day, and did some work on the boat. That night I drank about a quart of hot water, and buried myself in a bed of dry grass in the house, with a small fire going. I was soon in a profuse perspiration, and after a while fell sound asleep and awoke in the morning hungry. Whether the lime tea checked the fever, or whether the attack was no more than a passing biliousness, I do not know. At any rate I soon recovered, and was not ill again while on the island.
I now resumed work persistently on the boat, and finally the air-tight compartments and decking, made like the rest of the vessel of vines coated with pitch, were done. I got some rollers under the boat and pushed it into the creek, where it floated true and buoyant as I could desire. Mooring it securely I got on board and found it stanch, and every way much better than I had hoped. To my great joy it did not leak a drop, though I had expected to have a great deal of patching to do.