322 



INCIDENTS OP TRAVEL. 



Besides the claps of thunder and flashes of lightning, 

 we had one alarm at night. It was from a noise that 

 sounded like the cracking of a dry branch under a 

 stealthy tread, which, as we all started up together, 

 I thought was that of a wild beast, but which Mr. Cath- 

 erwood, whose bed was nearer, imagined to be that of 

 a man. We climbed up the mound of fallen stones at 

 the end of this corridor, but beyond all was thick dark- 

 ness. Pawling fired twice as an intimation that we 

 were awake, and we arranged poles across the corridor 

 as a trap, so that even an Indian could not enter from 

 that quarter without being thrown down with some con- 

 siderable noise and detriment to his person. 



Besides moschetoes and garrapatas, or ticks, we suf- 

 fered from another worse insect, called by the natives 

 niguas, which, we are told, pestered the Spaniards on 

 their first entry into the country, and which, says the 

 historian, " ate their Way into the Flesh, under the 

 Nails of the Toes, then laid their Nits there within, and 

 multiplied in such manner that there was no ridding 

 them but by Cauteries, so that some lost their Toes, 

 and some their Feet, whereas they should at first have 

 been picked out ; but being as yet unacquainted with 

 the Evil, they knew not how to apply the Remedy." 



This description is true even to the last clause. We 

 had escaped them until our arrival at Palenque, and 

 being unacquainted with the evil, did not know how to 

 apply the remedy. I carried one in my foot for sever- 

 al days, conscious that something was wrong, but not 

 knowing what, until the nits had been laid and multi- 

 plied. Pawling undertook to pick them out with a 

 penknife, which left a large hole in the flesh; and, un- 

 luckily, from the bites of various insects my foot be- 

 came so inflamed that I could not get on shoe or stock- 



