242 THE CHEGOE. 
suffering from tubboes (a remnant of the yaws), 
but from the actual depredations of the chegoes, 
which have penetrated under the nails of the toes, 
and there formed sores, which, if not attended to, 
would, ere long, become foul and corroding ulcers. 
AsI seldom had a shoe or stocking on my: foot from 
the time that I finally left the sea coast in 1812, 
the chegoe was a source of perpetual disquietude to 
me. I found it necessary to examine my feet every 
evening, in order to counteract the career of this 
extraordinary insect. Occasionally, at one over- 
hauling, I have broken up no less than four of its 
establishments under the toe nails. 
In 1825, a day or two before I left Guiana, wish- 
ful to try how this puny creature and myself would 
agree during a sea voyage, I purposely went to a 
place where it abounded, not doubting but that 
some needy individual of its tribe would attempt to 
better its condition. Ere long, a pleasant and 
agreeable kind of itching under the bend of the 
great toe informed me that a chegoe had bored for 
a settlement. In about three days after we had 
sailed, a change of colour took place in the skin, 
just at the spot where the chegoe had entered, ap- 
pearing somewhat like a blue pea. By the time we 
were in the latitude of Antigua, my guest had be- 
come insupportable ; and I saw there was an imme- 
diate necessity for his discharge. Wherefore, I 
turned him and his numerous family adrift, and 
poured spirits of turpentine into the cavity which 
they had occupied, in order to prevent the remotest 
chance of a regeneration. 
