24-2 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. 

 As I 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. 



