He gave us an excellent dinner, with good wine,
and attended to us most assiduously himself.
While the gentlemen were smoking, I went to see a poor engine-driver
who had met with a bad accident, and who was lying at this hotel. He
is a fine healthy-looking Englishman, and he told me that, until this
misfortune, he had never known a day's illness in his life. It seems
that, at four o'clock in the afternoon of this day week, he was sent
off with a special engine to convey an important message. Something
going wrong during the journey, he slackened speed, and, in stepping
off the engine to see what was the matter, his foot slipped, and the
wheel of the tender went over it. He had no one with him who could
manage the engine alone, so he was obliged to get up again, and
endeavour to struggle on to Talca; but after going a few miles
further, the engine suddenly ran off the track, at a part of the
unfinished line that had not yet been sufficiently ballasted. They
could not get it on again unaided, and one of the men had to start off
and walk many miles before he could procure assistance. Altogether,
poor Clarke underwent forty-two hours of intense agony from the time
of the accident until he received any medical attention. In spite of
this he is now doing well; and though the foot, which is in a bath of
carbolic acid and water, looks very bad, he is in great spirits,
because the three local doctors, in consultation, have decided that
amputation will not be necessary.
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