212 WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMEEICA. 



state of health, neither ill nor what you may call well ; 1 

 yawned and felt weary without exercise, and my sleep was 

 merely slumber. This was the time to have taken medi- 

 cine ; but I neglected to do so, though I had just been 

 reading, " navis referent in mare te novi fluctus, quid 

 agis? fortiter occupa portum." I awoke at midnight; a 

 cruel headache, thirst, and pain in the small of the back, 

 informed me what the case was. Had Chiron himself been 

 present, he could not have told me more distinctly that I 

 was going to have a tight brush of it, and that I ought to 

 meet it with becoming fortitude. I dozed, and woke, and 

 startled, and then dozed again, and suddenly awoke, think- 

 ing I was falling down a precipice. 



The return of the bats to their diurnal retreat, which was 

 in the thatch above my hammock, informed rne that the 

 sun was now fast approaching to the eastern horizon. I 

 arose, in languor and in pain, the pulse at one hundred 

 and twenty. I took ten grains of calomel and a scruple of 

 jalap, and drank during the day large draughts of tea, weak 

 and warm. The physic did its duty ; but there was no re- 

 mission of fever or headache, though the pain of the back 

 was less acute. I was saved the trouble of keeping the 

 room cool, as the wind beat in at every quarter. 



At five in the evening the pulse had risen to one hundred 

 and thirty^ and the headache almost insupportable, especi- 

 ally on looking to the right or left. I now opened a vein, 

 and made a large orifice, to allow the blood to rush out 

 rapidly; I closed it after losing sixteen ounces. I then 

 steeped my feet in warm water, and got into the hammock. 

 After bleeding, the pulse fell to ninety, and the head was 

 much relieved ; but during the night, which was very rest- 

 less, the pulse rose again to one hundred and twenty, and 

 at times the headache was distressing. I relieved the head- 

 ache from time to time by applying cold water to the 



