SOUTH AMERICA. 187 

 ful not to scratch it. If you do so, and break the skm, Third 



Journey. 



you expose yourself to a sore. The first year I was in 



Guiana, the Bete-rouge, and my own want of knowledge, 

 and, I may add, the little attention I paid to it, created 

 an ulcer above the ancle, which annoyed me for six 

 months, and if I hobbled out into the grass, a number of 

 Bete-rouge would settle on the edges of the sore, and 

 increase the inflammation. 



Still more inconvenient, painful, and annoying is ano- TheChegoe, 

 ther little pest, called the Chegoe. It looks exactly like 

 a very small flea, and a stranger would take it for one. 

 However, in about four and twenty hoars, he would have 

 several broad hints that he had made a mistake in his ideas 

 of the animal. It attacks different parts of the body, but 

 chiefly the feet, betwixt the toe nails and the flesh. There 

 it buries itself, and at first causes an itching not unplea- 

 sant. In a day or so, after examining the part, you per- 

 ceive a place about the size of a pea, somewhat discoloured, 

 rather of a blue appearance. Sometimes it happens that 

 the itching is so trivial, you are not aware that the miner 

 is at work. Time, they say, makes great discoveries. 

 The discoloured part turns out to be the nest of the 

 Chegoe, containing hundreds of eggs, which, if allowed 

 to hatch there, the young ones will soon begin to form 

 other nests, and in time cause a spreading ulcer. As soon 

 as you perceive that you have got the Chegoe in your 

 flesh, you must take a needle, or a sharp pointed knife, 



2 B 2 



