36 MEMORIES OF MY LIFE
whole of the twenty miles. The stumps had healed when I saw them. I asked how they staunched the blood. They explained by gesture that it was by stumping the bleeding'' ends into the sand, and they grinned with satisfaction while they explained.
I may yet travel onwards many more years to another illustrative anecdote. I happened to be l1resident of the Anthropological lnoittiws when a very interesting memoir was read on the subject now in question. Numerous instances were given of aa very startling character, but the one that seemed the most so was a story told there by the late Sir James Paget, as communicated to him by a trustworthy friend; he added that he felt compelled to believe it. It referred to a native New Zealander. It appeared that at the time in question it was the height of fashion for the Maoris to wear boots on great occasions, and not to appear barefooted. A youth had saved money and went to a store a long way off, where he purchased a pair of these precious articles. On returning home he tried to put them on, but one of his feet had a long projecting toe which prevented it from being thrust home. He went quite as a matter of course to fetch a bill-hook which was at hand, and, putting his foot on a log of wood, chopped off the end of his long toe and drew on the boot.
There was another occurrence in those prePasteur days on which my mind dwelt often. It was a story corroborated by many analogous but much less striking instances that came under my own observation, of a man who had stumbled into a cauldron of scalding pitch. He was quickly pulled out, but the pitch had so enclosed and adhered to one of his
