IN Lethe's streani forgot all care.
And now another morn appears.
I rise betimes and rub my ears--
My eyes I mean--and straight off-hand
I bend my course toward the strand.
With vast surprise Old Ocean saw
Obedient to his Maker's law
(A lesson this to you and me,
We've Laws to 'bey as well as he).
But Sea-ships and, such things I tell ye
Can never fill a hungry belly.
Well--hunger does my steps recall 
--But.why do I your patience maul--
Now mental food is requisite
As well as corporal, is n't it?
To overhaul the Library
Permission had, I there espy
'The Heidelborgian Catechism'
'A Book of Hymns t'excite Devotion'--
And lastly 'Scott on Elocution'--
A violin procur'd, I play
As well as Orpheus, any day--
For proof--the Negroes near me lurk
And listen when they ought to work.
But stop! my muse, and quit your caper,
I fear you will run off the paper

Your Son affectionate ('till Death
Shall knock us down and stop our breath) has scratch'd those lines, and when he's done Subscribes himself

A. ANDERSON.

 
 
 

CHAPTER IV.

THE EPIDEMIC OF 1795.

IN 1795 the yellow-fever broke out in New York, and the young doctor performed his work as a man and a physician nobly.  He gave up his engraving, and took his place as house surgeon at Bellevue Hospital, on a salary of four dollars a day.
   He thus speaks of his first day in his new position:
"Aug. 24.  Behold me in a new station and my mind in a state of confusion and perplexity.  At 10 O'clock I call'd on Dr. Smith and after sitting near 2 hours, stepp'd into the Chair with him and away we posted to Bellevue. --After instructing, me in my duty and introducing me to the family and patients, be shook me affectionately by the hand and departed.  There are 6 patients.  The Family consists of Mr. Fisher, the steward, and his wife, Old Daddy, the gardener--an old negro, a black nurse and two white ones.  I spent the afternoon in putting up medicines and arranging matters."
At one time there were as many as forty patients