Chap. VI. AGUE. 409 



the Peruvian boundary I found now I should be unable 

 to go. My ague seemed to be the culmination of a 

 gradual deterioration of health, which had been going 

 on for several years. I had exposed myself too much in 

 the sun, working to the utmost of my strength six days 

 a week, and had suffered much, besides, from bad and 

 insufficient food. The ague did not exist at St. Paulo ; 

 but the foul and humid state of the village was, perhaps, 

 sufficient to produce ague in a person much weakened 

 from other causes. The country bordering the shores of 

 the Solimoens is healthy throughout ; some endemic dis- 

 eases certainly exist, but these are not of a fatal nature, 

 and the epidemics which desolated the Lower Amazons 

 from Para to the Rio Negro, between the years 1850 

 and 1856, had never reached this favoured land. Ague 

 is known only on the banks of those tributary streams 

 which have dark-coloured water. 



I always carried a stock of medicines with me, and a 

 small phial of quinine, which I had bought at Para in 

 1851, but never yet had use for, now came in very 

 useful. I took for each dose as much as would lie on 

 the tip of a penknife-blade, mixing it with warm camo- 

 mile tea. The first few days after my first attack I 

 could not stir, and was delirious during the paroxysms 

 of fever ; but the worst being over, I made an effort to 

 rouse myself, knowing that incurable disorders of the 

 liver and spleen follow ague in this country if the feel- 

 ing of lassitude is too much indulged. So every morning 

 I shouldered my gun or insect-net, and went my usual 

 walk in the forest. The fit of shivering very often 

 seized me before I got home, and I then used to stand 



