200 WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA 



in the rainy season. Its bite causes an intoler- 

 able itching. The best way to get rid of it, is to rub 

 the part affected with oil or rum. You must be 

 careful not to scratch, it. If you do so, and break 

 the skin, you expose yourself to a sore. The first 

 year I was in Guiana, the bete-rougq, and my own 

 want of knowledge, and, I may add, the little at- 

 tention I paid to it, created an ulcer above the 

 ankle, which annoyed me for six months, and if I 

 hobbled out into the grass, a number of bete-rouge 

 would settle on the edges of the sore, and increase 

 tlie inflammation. 

 (^ Still more inconvenient, painful, and annoying 

 is another little pest, called the Chegoe. It looks 

 exactly like a very small flea, and a stranger 

 would take it for one. However, in about four and 

 twenty hours, he would have several broad hints 

 that he had made a mistake in his ideas of the 

 animal. It attacks different parts of the body, 

 but chiefly the feet, betwixt the toe-nails and the 

 flesh. There it buries itself, and at first causes 

 an itching not unpleasant. In a day or so, after 

 examining the part, you perceive a place about the 

 size of a pea, somewhat discoloured, rather of a 

 blue appearance. Sometimes it happens that the 

 itching is so trivial, you are not aware that the 

 miner is at work. Time, they say, makes great 

 discoveries. The discoloured part turns out to 

 be the nest of the chegoe containing hundreds of 

 eggs, which, if allowed to hatch there, the young 

 ones will soon begin to form other nests, and in 

 time cause a spreading ulcer. As soon as you 

 perceive that you have got the chegoe in your 

 flesh, you must take a needle, or a sharp-pointed 



