Chap. YI. 
AGUE. 
409 
the Peruvian boundary I found now I should be unable 
to go. My ague seemed to be the culmination of a 
gradual deterioration of health, which had been going 
on for several years. I had exposed myself too much in 
the sun, working to the utmost of my strength six days 
a week, and had suffered much, besides, from bad and 
insufficient food. The ague did not exist at St. Paulo ; 
but the foul and humid state of the village was, perhaps, 
sufficient to produce ague in a person much weakened 
from other causes. The country bordering the shores of 
the Solimoens is healthy throughout ; some endemic dis- 
eases certainly exist, but these are not of a fatal nature, 
and the epidemics which desolated the Lower Amazons 
from Para to the Rio Negro, between the years 1850 
and 1856, had never reached this favoured land. Ague 
is known only on the banks of those tributary streams 
which have dark-coloured water. 
I always carried a stock of medicines with me, and a 
small phial of quinine, which I had bought at Para in 
1851, but never yet had use for, now came in very 
useful. I took for each dose as much as would lie on 
the tip of a penknife-blade, mixing it with warm camo- 
mile tea. The first few days after my first attack I 
could not stir, and was delirious during the paroxysms 
of fever ; but the worst being over, I made an effort to 
rouse myself, knowing that incurable disorders of the 
liver and spleen follow ague in this country if the feel- 
ing of lassitude is too much indulged. So every morning 
I shouldered my gun or insect-net, and went my usual 
walk in the forest. The fit of shivering very often 
seized me before I got home^ and I then used to stand 
