404 



THE LAKE EEGIONS OF CENTRAL AFRICA. 



tight and heavy to wear. At sunset, the attack had 

 reached its height. I saw yawning wide to receive me 



" those dark gates across the wild 

 That no man knows." 



The whole body was palsied, powerless, motionless, 

 and the limbs appeared to wither and die ; the feet had 

 lost all sensation, except a throbbing and tingling, as if 

 pricked by a number of needle points ; the arms refused 

 to be directed by will, and to the hands the touch of 

 cloth and stone was the same. Gradually the attack 

 seemed to spread upwards till it compressed the ribs ; 

 there, however, it stopped short. 



This, at a distance of two months from medical aid, 

 and with the principal labour of the Expedition still in 

 prospect ! However, I was easily consoled. Hope, says 

 the Arab, is woman, Despair is man. If one of us was 

 lost, the other might survive to carry home the results 

 of the exploration. I had undertaken the journey in the 

 "nothing-like-leather" state of mind, with the resolve 

 either to do or die. I had done my best, and now 

 nothing appeared to remain for me but to die as well. 



Said bin Salim, when sent for, declared, by a " la 

 haul!" the case beyond his skill; it was one of partial 

 paralysis brought on by malaria, with which the 

 faculty in India are familiar. The Arab consulted 

 a Msawahili Fundi, or caravan-guard, who had joined 

 us on the road, and this man declared that a similar 

 accident had once occurred to himself and his little party 

 in consequence of eating poisoned mushrooms. I tried 

 the usual remedies without effect, and the duration of 

 the attack presently revealed what it was. The con- 

 traction of the muscles, which were tightened like liga- 

 tures above and below the knees, and those Aura youi/am, 

 a pathological symptom which the old Greek loves to 



