241 THE TAMPAN. 



and, now that they are gone from this lower sphere, I could 

 not help wishing that these our Roman Catholic fellow- 

 Christians had felt it to be their duty to give the people 

 the Bible, to be a light to their feet when the good men 

 themselves were gone. 



When sleeping in the house of the commandant, an 

 insect, well known in the southern country by the name 

 tampan, bit my foot. It isa kind of tick, and chooses by 

 preference the parts between the fingers or toes for inflict- 

 ing its bite. It is seen from the size of a pin's head to that 

 of a pea, and is common in all the native huts in this coun- 

 try. It sucks the blood until quite full, and is then of a 

 dark-blue color, and its skin so tough and yielding that it 

 is impossible to burst it by any amount of squeezing with 

 the fingers. I had felt the effects of its bite in former 

 3*ears, and eschewed all native huts ever after; but, as I 

 was here again assailed in a European house, I shall detail 

 the effects of the bite. These are a tingling sensation of 

 mingled pain and itching, which commences ascending the* 

 limb until the poison imbibed reaches the abdomen, where 

 it soon causes violent vomiting and purging. Where these 

 effects do not follow, as we found afterward at Tete, fever 

 sets in ; and I was assured by intelligent Portuguese there 

 that death has sometimes been the result of this fever. 

 The anxiety my friends at Tete manifested to keep my 

 men out of the reach of the tampans of the village made it 

 evident that they had seen cause to dread this insignificant 

 insect. The only inconvenience I afterward suffered from 

 this bite was the continuance of the tingling sensation in 

 the point bitten for about a week. 



May 12. — As we were about to start this morning, the 

 commandant, Senhor Arsenio, provided bread and meat 

 most bountifully for my use on the way to the next sta- 

 tion, and sent two militia-soldiers as guides, instead of our 

 Cassange corporal, who left us here. About mid-day we 

 asked for shelter from the sun in the house of Senhor Mel- 

 lot, at Zangu; and, though I was unable to sit and engage 



