98 ROUGHING IT IN SOUTHERN INDIA 



the first day of exposure F. dosed his people with the great 

 specific — quinine ; thus taken in time an attack might be 

 mitigated, or even warded off. I treated myself in the same 

 way, three grains being the usual quantity for a first dose. 

 F. himself was past that ; quinine had no effect on him, 

 except to make him deaf, with rushing noises in the ears — 

 a condition called being ' cinchonised,' from the name 

 cinchona (Peruvian bark), from which quinine is obtained. 

 Strychnine and Fowler's Solution of arsenic were alone of 

 any use to him, at best only shortening an attack. I have 

 myself taken twenty and thirty grains of quinine a day, 

 measured in our practised Indian fashion — a teaspoonful 

 levelled off with the finger being twenty grains, near 

 enough. That mixed in a little raw brandy would sometimes 

 cut short the premonitory symptoms ; it was of no use 

 if shivering had already set in. After I had had a good 

 deal of malarial fever, it suddenly stopped, but only to 

 change its outward character ; for sores came out on both 

 my feet — simply another form of the malaria, we were told, 

 and a very detestable one it was, laming me for six months. 

 Then the old form returned, and I was downright grateful 

 for it, so accustomed does one get to the fixed idea that 

 one must have malaria somehow. 



It was on this trip that we had the good fortune to find 

 a most rare thing, or perhaps I should say a thing rarely 

 found — the Bamboo stone. Our people were splitting up 

 bamboos for shingles with which to roof the huts, and 

 called out delightedly at their discovery. This stone 

 might be taken for an ordinary white pebble from the sea- 

 shore till its history is known ; it is cloudy or milky-looking, 

 the size of a damson. Although of no account in the way 

 of money, it surely has a value and interest of its own, 

 when one thinks of the long years it has taken to gather and 

 crystallise, occurring only in very old bamboos. It is com- 

 posed entirely of pure silica, that substance which gives 



