Chap. XXY. 
FIELD FOE THE PHILANTHROPIST. 
505 
from which to inoculate the rest, nearly the whole village was 
cut off. I have seen but one case of hydrocephalus, a few of 
epilepsy, none of cholera or cancer, and many diseases common 
in England, are here quite unknown. It is true that I suffered 
severely from fever, but my experience cannot be taken as a fair 
criterion in the matter. Compelled to sleep on the damp ground 
month after month, exposed to drenching showers, and getting 
the lower extremities wetted two or three times every day. Living 
on native food (with the exception of sugarless coffee, during the 
jommey to the north and the latter half of the return journey), 
and that food the manioc-roots and meal, which contain so much 
uncombined starch that the eyes become affected (as in the case 
of animals fed for experiment on pure gluten or starch), and 
being exposed during many hours each day in comparative 
inaction to the direct rays of the sun, the thermometer standing 
above 96^ in the shade—these constitute a more pitiful hygiene 
than any missionaries who may follow will ever have to endure. 
I do not mention these privations as if I considered them to be 
“ sacrifices^' for I think that the word ought never to be applied 
to anything we can do for Him, who came down from heaven and 
died for us; but I suppose it is necessary to notice them, in order 
that no unfavourable opinion may be formed from my experience 
as to what that of others might be, if less exposed to the 
vicissitudes of the weather and change of diet. 
I believe that the interior of tins country presents a much 
more inviting field for the philantlmopist than does the west coast, 
where missionaries of the Church Missionary, United Presbyterian, 
and other societies, have long laboured with most astonishing 
devotedness and never-flagging zeal. There the fevers are much 
more virulent and more speedily fatal than here; for from 8° south 
they almost uivariably take the intermittent or least fatal type; 
and their effect being to enlarge the spleen, a complaint which is 
best treated by change of climate, we have the remedy at hand by 
passing the 20th parallel on our way south. But I am not to be 
understood as intimating that any of the numerous tribes are 
anxious for instruction: they are not the inquiring spirits we read 
of in other countries; they do not desire the gospel, because they 
know nothing about either it, or its benefits; but there is no 
impediment in the way of instruction. Every head-man would be 
