Fearful Effect of Ant Bite. 
101 
pain, but words indeed fail wherein to describe the suffering that its 
bite once caused me when 1 inadvertently touched a specimen with my 
right thumb. The excruciating pain was immediately communicated 
from the bite to the whole body, and manifested itself most forcibly in 
the breast, and above and below both shoulders. Scarcely had a few 
minutes passed before 1 felt as if I were wholly paralysed, so that it 
was only witli the greatest agony and effort that I managed to totter 
towards the settlement, but this I was not in a position to reach. The 
pain at the actual wound and the local swelling remained extremely 
slight. An Indian who was passing found me lying on the ground 
unconscious, and carried me to my hammock where a bad attack of 
traumatic fever kept me the whole of the following day. The Indians 
also have a deep horror of these creatures, "but at the same time utilise 
them, so I have heard them say, as a remedy for rheumatism: if they 
cannot obtain relief from this complaint in any other way, they search 
for one of these ants, and fixing it between two bits of wood, let it bite 
the painful spot a few times, a treatment which, according tu what we 
were assured, must be a radical cure for it.* 
344. The hitherto prevailing changeful weather with thunderstorms 
and rain showers breaking only of an afternoon and at night, had grad- 
ually become more settled, because now they took place of a morning 
as well. At the same time Fever, the enemy we had been long afraid 
of, sneaked into our camp. Several of the boathands were attacked, 
among them our chief boat-captain (steersman), which unfortunately 
obliged us to remain in Curnaka far and away longer than was and 
could be expected. 
345. The whole surroundings of the village had now assumed 
another aspect : thick mists densely obscured every tree up to noon, and 
the morning temperature, already lowered to 71° Fahr., rose again by 
afternoon to 80° at most. 
34b. Just in the same way as we all suffered from the low tem- 
perature and saturated atmosphere, so did my collections similarly 
succumb to the damaging influences of the weather: this was particu- 
larly the case with the dried plants and insects. If for only a single 
day 1 omitted to change the former and supply them with fresh papers 
dried in front of the fire, I could be almost certain that on the next I 
should find the treasures that had given me so much trouble and danger to 
collect all covered with a yellowish mould: preventive measures were 
useless for warding off its sudden onset although I smeared all the 
seams and chinks in the boxes with resin or other tarry substance. If 
every bright and sunny moment was not utilised in exposing my insects 
and birds’ skins to the open air, the same mould ( Eurotium licrbariorum 
Link.) would destroy them also. 
347. Owing to bis skill and interest Dr. Echlin cured the fever of our 
worst patient, the chief boat-captain, sooner than we were justified in 
expecting. My brother and Mr. Glascott spent the interval mainly in 
determining the geographical position of Curnaka : it was essential for 
* This remedy for Rheumatism is still iu use among these tribes. Probably its action is 
that of a “ counter-irritant,” such an effect as a mustard-plaster might produce. (F.G.R.) 
