242 



THE CHEGOE. 



suffering from tubboes (a remnant of the yaws), but 

 from the actual depredations of the chegoes, which 

 have penetrated under the nails of the toes, and 

 there formed sores, which, if not attended to, would^ 

 ere long, become foul and corroding ulcers. As I 

 seldom had a shoe or stocking on my foot from the 

 time that I finally left the sea coast in 1812, the 

 chegoe was a source of perpetual disquietude to me. 

 I found it necessary to examine my feet every evening, 

 in order to counteract the career of this extraordi- 

 nary insect. Occasionally, at one overhauling, I have 

 broken up no less than four of its establishments 

 under the toe nails. 



In 1825, a day or two before I left Guiana, wish- 

 ful to try how this puny creature and myself would 

 agree during a sea voyage, I purposely went to a 

 place where it abounded, not doubting but that 

 some needy individual of its tribe would attempt to 

 better its condition. Ere long, a pleasant and 

 agreeable kind of itching under the bend of the great 

 toe informed me that a chegoe had bored for a 

 settlement. In the three days after we had sailed, 

 a change of colour took place in the skin, just at 

 the spot where the chegoe had entered, appearing 

 somewhat like a blue pea. By the time we were in 

 the latitude of Antigua, my guest had become in- 

 supportable: and I saw there was an immediate 

 necessity for his discharge. Wherefore, I turned 

 him and his numerous family adrift, and poured 

 spirits of turpentine into the cavity which they had 

 occupied, in order to prevent the remotest chance of 

 a regeneration. 



J 



