THE KICHYOMA-CHYOMA. 



235 



At length, sitting, or rather lying upon the chair, with 

 limbs racked by cramps, features drawn and ghastly, 

 frame fixed and rigid, eyes glazed and glassy, he began 

 to utter a barking noise, and a peculiar chopping motion 

 of the mouth and tongue, with lips protruding — the 

 effect of difficulty of breathing — which so altered his 

 appearance that he was hardly recognisable, and com- 

 pleted the terror of the beholders. When this, the 

 third and the severest spasm, had passed away, he called 

 for pen and paper, and fearing that increased weakness 

 of mind and body might presently prevent any exertion, 

 he wrote an incoherent letter of farewell to his family. 

 That, however, was the crisis. He was afterwards able 

 to take the proper precautions, never moving without 

 assistance, and always ordering a resting-place to be 

 prepared for him. He spent a better night, with the 

 inconvenience, however, of sitting up, pillow-propped, 

 and some weeks elapsed before he could lie upon his 

 sides. Presently, the pains were mitigated, though 

 they did not entirely cease : this he expressed by say- 

 ing that "the knives were sheathed." Such, gentle 

 reader, in East Africa, is the kichyoma-chyoma : either 

 one of those eccentric after-effects of fever, which per- 

 plex the European at Zanzibar, or some mysterious 

 manifestation of the Protean demon Miasma, 



I at once sent an express to Snay bin Amir for the 

 necessary drugs. The Arabs treat this complaint by 

 applying to the side powdered myrrh mixed with yoke 

 of egg, and converted into a poultice with flour of 

 mung (Phaseolus Mungo). The material was duly 

 forwarded, but it proved of little use. Said bin Salim 

 meanwhile, after sundry vague hints concerning the 

 influence of the Father of Hair, the magnificent comet 



