72 NOTES OF A BOTANIST CHAP. 



infested with stinging caterpillars. Children who 

 play under the Tamarind trees at Guayaquil often 

 get badly stung by hairy caterpillars that drop on 

 them. I had always made light of caterpillars' 

 stings until one evening at Tarapoto, in gathering 

 specimens of an Inga tree, I got badly stung on 

 the right wrist, at the base of the thumb ; and 

 when the pain and irritation at the end of half 

 an hour went on increasing, I applied solution 

 of ammonia pretty freely, and it proved so strong 

 as to produce excoriation. The next morning the 

 wound (for such it had become) was inflamed and 

 very painful, but I tied a rag over it and started 

 for the forest, accompanied by three men. We 

 were out twelve hours, and had cold rain from the 

 sierras all day ; and when I reached home again 

 my right hand was swollen to twice its normal size, 

 and the swelling extended far up the arm. That 

 was the beginning of a time of the most intense 

 suffering I ever endured. After three days of 

 fever and sleepless nights, ulcers broke out all 

 over the back of the hand and the wrist they were 

 thirty-five in all, and I shall carry the scars to my 

 grave. For five weeks I was condemned to lie 

 most of the time on a long settle, with my arm 

 (in a sling) resting on the back, that being the 

 easiest position I could find. From the first I 

 applied poultices of rice and linseed, but for all 

 that the ulceration ran its course. At one time 

 the case looked so bad that mortification seemed 

 imminent, and I speculated on the possibility of 

 instructing my rude neighbours how to cut off 

 my hand, as the only means of saving my life. I 

 attributed my sufferings almost entirely to the 



