ii RELATING TO HEALTH AND CLIMATE 17 



uses, such as ipecacuanha, bismuth, or chlorodyne, 

 but the first, and to most people the best, medicine is 

 a very hearty dose of castor oil. 



The sun is the great enemy with which the European 

 settler must cope. Not only is there the direct danger 

 of sunstroke, but there is the indirect danger of 

 debility and nervous breakdown induced partly by the 

 sun's rays and partly by the factor which compensates 

 for the same — the elevation. Not only is sunstroke 

 in itself very serious, but the victim of a bad stroke is 

 more often than not incapacitated from ever again 

 standing the tropical sun for any length of time. This 

 being so, each incoming settler can hardly be too 

 careful. Let him wear a sun-helmet from 9 in the 

 morning till 4 in the afternoon, even on a cold, cloudy 

 day. Such helmets are rather disagreeable and un- 

 comfortable at first, but after a few months' hard 

 wear they will gain in comfort what they lose in 

 appearance. Again, if, as is generally the case during 

 the hot weather, no coat is worn, a spine-pad is 

 advisable ; further, it may be borne in mind with 

 advantage, that though a hairy chest peeping through 

 an unbuttoned shirt is picturesque and gives the air of 

 a pioneer, in reality the less surface exposed to the 

 sun the better. 



With regard to nervous diseases, or, rather, a 

 nervous state induced by the combination of sun and 

 height, there certainly seems a tendency after two or 

 three years' continuous residence towards an irritability 

 and a feeling of alternate elation and depression. A 

 small grievance gets magnified into a deep wrong. A 

 fortune appears in sight at one minute, ruin stares one 

 in the face the next. A longing for England begins 

 to stir — imaginary illnesses and dangers Jpom large. 





•< c 



