CHAPTER V. IN HOT WATER.
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CHAPTER V.
IN HOT WATER.
In the early Seventies, when European visitors came in large numbers to view the peerless Terraces of Rotomahana, about one hundred of the Tuhourangi tribe were living at Te Ariki, the place they landed from canoeing across Tarawera Lake to canoe up the hot river into Rotomahana, or to walk the intervening three-quarters of a mile to the Terraces.
The object creating the greatest sympathy and interest among the European visitors was a charming little crippled Maori boy named Tehirama, a grandson of the famous old chief Rangiheuea. He was about eleven years old. Both his feet turned inwards, while a large projection under the left arm-pit showed that he was also suffering from scrofulous enlargement of the heart.
He was a wonderfully bright and intelligent lad, his face constantly wreathed in smiles. The only relief he could get from pain was to rest in a hot bath. Just on the western side of the village there was a most suitable place, a circular pool about ten feet across and three or four feet deep, and fed by a beautifully clear warm spring, which ran in a strong current through the pool, and so into the lake.
I had a stretcher made, covered with soft cloth, a foot-rest, and comfortable seat and support for the back and head, one end of the stretcher resting on the bottom and the other against the bank, so it could be raised or depressed as required. This enabled the lad to lie with as much of his body immersed as he wished. I had a neat raupo roof after the shape of a Chinese mandarin's hat placed umbrella-wise over the whole extent of the pool; also a strong swinging oil lamp, and a floating tray on which was placed the little boy's looking-glass, brush and comb, and books. Another tray, containing food, he could draw out by a string. Day and night, no matter how fiercely the storms were raging or the winds blowing, he remained in perfect comfort and free from pain. I represented his case to the Government, and received instructions to send one of my
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mounted orderlies from my camp at Kaiteriria twice a week with provisions, and I was authorised to supply the lad with every kind of food for which he expressed a wish.
Months passed by, and interest in the lad's case extended all over the colonies. His mother, a fine woman (Emma) lived in a little hut near the pool. The temperature of the pool never varied, but it could be increased or lessened if the lad wished it. The scrofulous sores broke out all over his poor little body, Which otherwise appeared to be well nourished, as it might well be with the excellent food with which he was supplied. Dr. Tracey, a surgeon, of Sydney, begged his parents to allow him to take the lad to Australia, believing he could effect a cure, but when the lad was lifted out of the water in his stretcher he screamed with agony, and begged to be put back. At the end of a year there was not a portion of unbroken skin the size of a threepenny piece on his whole body, and after living fifteen months, and having only been lifted out of the water twice, he died. He was bright, cheerful, and happy to the last.
Many paragraphs relating to this lad appeared in the New Zealand and Australian papers of the day, and they were looked upon as travellers' tales, and many people declared in their ignorance that it would be quite impossible for such a thing to have happened. But only the other day, under the heading, "Four Years in a Bath: A Brave Man's Fortitude," I read an account of a wounded Army officer, Lieut. Milton B. Mackall, who had lived in a warm bath for four years. He recently died at Baltimore. Lieut. Mackall was wounded by a shell in June, 1918, the lower part of his spine being severely injured. His wounds were too large in extent to carry out the necessary flushing by the ordinary methods of tubes, so the doctors decided to immerse him continuously in a bath, his body resting on a water mattress. He displayed most remarkable fortitude during the long ordeal, and helped to cheer the patients suffering from shell-shock by teaching them to play musical instruments.
