THE CHEGOE. 



241 



sight. Not wishful to encourage its intended co- 

 lony, " Avast, there ! my good little fellow," said I ; 

 "we must part company without loss of time. I 

 cannot afford to keep you, and a numerous family, 

 for nothing ; you would soon eat me out of house 

 and home." r On saying this, I applied the point of 

 my penknife to the place where the chegoe had 

 entered^ and turned it loose upon the world again. 



In the plantations of Guiana, there is generally 

 an old negress, known by the name of Granny, a 

 kind of " Junonis anus/' who loiters about the negro 

 yard, and is supposed to take charge of the little 

 negroes who are too young to work. Towards the 

 close of day, you will sometimes hear the most 

 dismal cries of woe coming from that quarter. Old 

 Granny is then at work^ grubbing the chegoe nests 

 out of the feet of the sable urchins, and filling the 

 holes with lime juice and Cayenne pepper. This 

 searching compound has two duties to perform : 

 first, it causes death to any remaining chegoe in the 

 hole ; and, secondly, it acts as a kind of birch-rod 

 to the unruly brats, by which they are warned, to 

 their cost^ not to conceal their chegoes in future : 

 for, afraid of encountering old Granny's tomahawk, 

 many of them prefer to let the chegoes riot in their 

 flesh, rather than come under her dissecting hand. 



A knowing eye may always perceive v/hen the 

 feet of negroes are the abode of the chegoe. They 

 dare not place their feet firmly on the ground, 

 on account of the pain which such a position would 

 give them ; but they hobble along with their toes 

 turned up ; and by this you know that they are not 



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