236 WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 



settle on the edges of the sore, and increase the inflamma- 

 tion. 



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 knife, and take it 

 out. If the nest be formed, great care must be taken not 

 to break it, otherwise some of the eggs remain in the flesh, 

 and then you will soon be annoyed with more chegoes. 

 After removing the nest, it is well to drop spirit of tur- 

 pentine into the hole : that will most effectually destroy 

 any chegoe that may be lurking there. Sometimes I have 

 taken four nests out of my feet in the course of the day. 



Every evening, before sundown, it was part of my 

 toilette to examine my feet, and see that they were clear 

 of chegoes. Now and then a nest would escape the 

 scrutiny, and then I had to smart for it a day or two after. 

 A chegoe once lit upon the back of my hand ; wishful to 

 see how he worked, I allowed him to take possession. He 



