332 CLIMATE— DISEASES. Chap. XXV 



tlio grass at the Barotse did not allow of their running fast, 

 and because there " it never becomes cool," Sekeletu at last 

 stood up, and said, " I am perfectly satisfied as to the great 

 advantages of the path which you have opened, and think 

 that we ought to go to the Barotse, in order to shorten the 

 way to Loanda ; but with whom am I to live there ? If you 

 were coming with us, I would remove to-morrow, but now 

 you are going to the white man's country to bring Ma Kobert, 

 and when you return you will find me near to the spot on 

 which you wish ro dwell." 



The fever is certainly a drawback to this otherwise import- 

 ant missionary field. The great humidity produced by heavy 

 rains and inundations, the exuberant vegetation caused by 

 fervid heat in rich moist soil, the stagnation of the air caused 

 by the numerous forests, and the prodigious amount of decay- 

 ing vegetable matter annually exposed after the inundations 

 to the rays of a torrid sun, combine to render the climate far 

 from salubrious. But fever is almost the only disease pre- 

 valent in it. There is no consumption or scrofula, and but 

 little insanity. Smallpox and measles visited the country 

 some thirty years ago, but they have not again appeared, 

 although the former has been almost constantly on some part 

 of the coast. Singularly enough, the people used inoculation 

 for this disease ; and in one village they seem to have chosen 

 a malignant case from which to inoculate the rest, for nearly 

 the whole population was cut off. I have seen but one case 

 of hydrocephalus, a few of epilepsy, and none of cholera or 

 cancer, while many diseases common in England are quite 

 unknown. It is true that I suffered severely from fever, but 

 my experience cannot be taken as a fair criterion in the 

 matter. Compelled to sleep on the damp ground month after 

 month, exposed to drenching showers, and getting the lower 

 extremities wetted two or three times every day, living on 

 manioc-roots and meal, and exposed during many hours each 

 day to the direct rays of the sun with the thermometer stand- 

 ing above 96° in the shade — these constitute a more pitiful 

 hygiene than any succeeding missionaries will ever have to 

 endure. 



I believe that the interior of this country presents a much 

 more inviting field for the philanthropist than the west coast, 



