II AT SAN FERNANDO DE ATABAPO 465 
effect. The Comisario and his nurse advised 
certain local pills always taken for fever with good 
results. One of these was a violent purgative, and 
he was persuaded to take it repeatedly, but it 
produced no good effects. The fever increased in 
intensity and duration, he got absolutely no sleep 
for days and nights together, he was unable to take 
any food but a spoonful or two of arrowroot water- 
gruel daily, and he was reduced to the extremity of 
weakness and exhaustion. He had an unquench- 
able thirst, great difficulty of breathing, with 
occasional violent sweats, and for some days he 
himself and those around him were nightly and 
almost hourly expecting his death. He had given 
the Comisario instructions as to the disposal of 
his plants and few other belongings, and then waited 
the end in a state of almost complete apathy. 
During this period his nurse would often leave 
the house empty for six hours at a time, evidently 
expecting and hoping to find him dead on her 
return. In the evening, after lighting his lamp and 
leaving a supply of water on a chair by his bed, she 
would often fill the house with her friends and 
spend the time in discussing or abusing him ; 
calling him all the vile names in which the Spanish 
language is so rich. Among other things she 
would call out : " Die, you English dog, that we 
may have a merry watch-night with your dollars ! " 
One night when the symptoms were very bad she 
shut up the house and did not return till long after 
midnight. On another evening she invited her 
son-in-law and other friends to spend the night 
with her, in the expectation (as Spruce heard her 
whisper to them) that the Englishman could not 
VOL. I 2 H 
