172 WANDERINGS IN SOUTH A^IERICA 



within a few days of Cancer, that I had a severe 

 attack of fever. There had been a deluge of rain, 

 accompanied with tremendoiis thunder and light- 

 ning, and very little sun. Nothing could exceed 

 the dampness of the atmosphere. For two or 

 three days I had been in a kind of twilight state 

 of health, neither ill nor what you may call well ; 

 I yawned and felt weary without exercise, and my 

 sleep was merely slumber. This was the time to 

 have taken medicine; but I neglected to do so, 

 though I had just been reading, ''0 navis referent 

 in mare te novi fluctus, quid agis? fortiter 

 occupa portum." I awoke at midnight; a cruel 

 headache, thirst, and pain in the small of the 

 back, informed me what the case was. Had 

 Chiron himself been present, he could not have 

 told me more distinctly that I was going to have 

 a tight brush of it, and that I ought to meet it 

 with becoming fortitude. I dozed, and woke, and 

 startled, and then dozed again, and suddenly 

 awoke, thinking I was falling down a precipice. 



The return of the bats to their diurnal retreat, 

 which was in the thatch above my hammock, in- 

 formed me that the sun was now fast approach- 

 ing to the eastern horizon. I arose, in languor 

 and in pain, the pulse at one hundred and twenty. 

 I took ten grains of calomel and a scruple of 

 jalap, and drank during the day large draughts 

 of tea, weak and warm. The physic did its duty ; 

 but there was no remission of fever or headache, 

 though the pain of the back was less acute, I 

 was saved the trouble of keeping the room cool, 

 as the wind beat in at every quarter. 



At five in the evening the pulse had risen to one 



