292 Habits of the Chegoe of Guiana. 



In the plantations of Guiana, there is generally an old ne- 

 gress, known by the name of Granny, a kind of " Junonis 

 anus," who loiters about the negro yard, and is supposed to 

 take charge of the little negroes who are too young to work. 

 Towards the close of day, you will sometimes hear the most 

 dismal cries of woe coming from that quarter. Old Granny 

 is then at work, grubbing the chegoe nests out of the feet of 

 the sable urchins, and filling the holes with lime juice and 

 Cayenne pepper. This searching compound has two duties 

 to perform : first, it causes death to any remaining chegoe in 

 the hole ; and, secondly, it acts as a kind birch-rod to the 

 unruly brats, by which they are warned, to their cost, not to 

 conceal their chegoes in future : for, afraid of encountering 

 old Granny's tomahawk, many of them prefer to let the che- 

 goes riot in their flesh, rather than come under her dissecting 

 hand. 



A knowing eye may always perceive when the feet of ne- 

 groes are the abode of the chegoe. They dare not place their 

 feet firmly on the ground, on account of the pain which such 

 a position would give them ; but they hobble along \v T ith their 

 toes turned up : and by this you know that they are not suf- 

 fering from tubboes (a remnant of the yaws), but from the 

 actual depredations of the chegoes, which have penetrated 

 under the nails of the toes, and there formed sores, which, if 

 not attended to, would, ere long, become foul and corroding 

 ulcers. As I seldom had a shoe or stocking on my foot from 

 the time that I finally left the sea coast in J 8 12, the chegoe 

 was a source of perpetual disquietude to me. I found it ne- 

 cessary to examine my feet every evening, in order to counter- 

 act the career of this extraordinary insect. Occasionally, at 

 ohe overhauling, I have broken up no less than four of its 

 establishments under the toe nails. 



In 1825, a day or two before I left Guiana, wishful to try 

 how this puny creature and myself would agree during a sea 

 voyage, I purposely went to a place where it abounded, not 

 doubting but that some needy individual of its tribe would 

 attempt to better its condition. Ere long, a pleasant and 

 agreeable kind of itching under the bend of the great toe in- 

 formed me that a chegoe had bored for a settlement. In 

 about three days after we had sailed, a change of colour took 

 place in the skin, just at the spot where the chegoe had en- 

 tered, appearing somewhat like a blue pea. By the time we 

 were in the latitude of Antigua, my guest had become insup- 

 portable ; and I saw there was an immediate necessity for his 

 discharge. Wherefore, I turned him and his numerous family 

 adrift, and poured spirits of turpentine into the cavity which 



