358 THE FOREST AXD THE FIELD. 



return to the Coast and the stupid policy which, 

 although it does not civilise, makes " the scum 

 of the earth " into British subjects. 



The two great maladies peculiar to this part of 

 the coast are fever and dysentery, both of which, if 

 not checked, are apt to end fatally. Fever in its 

 mildest form is intermittent, that is, there are in- 

 tervals of health between the attacks ; but as the 

 disease becomes more aggravated, it assumes the 

 remittent form, and the symptoms only remit, 

 change their aspect, and do not disappear. Coast- 

 fever, like the Indian jungle-fever, from which it 

 appears to differ in no essential point, rarely lays 

 its victim prostrate at once. The malarious poison 

 that engenders it has a period of incubation, and 

 breaks out some days after the primary symptoms 

 are evinced, w-hicli are a sense of lassitude and lan- 

 guor, accompanied by yawning and stretching, 

 restlessness, want of sleep, loss of appetite, dull 

 eyes, dizziness, and an incapacity to concentrate 

 the ideas, chills over the body, and a dull heavy 

 pain over the loins and kidneys, which latter often 

 cease to act. Then comes intense headache. 



