144 A YEAR IN BRAZIL. 



talk, I found it somewhat difficult to hold communication 

 with a mute in Portuguese. However, he was very bright 

 and pleasant, explained to me the deaf and dumb alphabet, 

 on one hand only, and inquired as to my health. We then, 

 by writing, spoke of Paris and Lisbon, and I finally showed 

 him some Graphics, which he liked. 



One of our men left here to-day (February i) for Eng- 

 land. He was chief of the third section, and suffered much 

 from- fever on the banks of the Para. He came in here 

 very ill soon after we arrived, and had no appetite. T 

 dosed him with Warburg's tincture,* and the effect was 

 marvellous ; his appetite returned, and when he left he 

 was a different man. 



Yesterday the assistant engineer of the fourth section 

 came in invalided to go home. He has had two bad 

 attacks of fever, and was delirious for four days at Pitan- 

 guy. He is now suffering much from bernos, of which 

 he extracted seven yesterday and three to-day. His 

 wounds are severely inflamed, and the ride of a hundred 

 miles down to this place has, of course, intensified the evil. 

 He and his companion, chief of the section, have also fallen 

 in with many jiggers ("bichos de pe," they are called here), 

 having had two or three under every toe-nail. They often 

 lodged in huts and cabins, where these insects are always 

 found. So far, I have escaped them. 



After dinner, at sunset, we sit outside our door, to enjoy 

 the cloudless sky and balmy air after our day's work, on 



* Warburg's tincture is certainly a wonderful medicine. It has never 

 failed. On one occasion half a bottle effectually cured a bad attack of 

 dysentery. This, with quinine and Cockle's pills, were the only medicines 

 I administered. When the latter once became known, I was continually 

 being applied to for them, and was glad to find they did not deteriorate after 

 the box had been opened some time and exposed in camp to the all-pervading 

 damp, which made the pills quite soft. 



