ACROSS UNKNOWN SOUTH AMERICA 
severe sufferings and endless trials of other kinds. Un¬ 
less you were careful where you were sitting, you found 
yourself spiked by thorns of great length, which were 
strewn all over the forest hidden under the thick carpet 
of discarded foliage from the trees. Not only that, but 
the moment you sat down your body was simply invaded 
by swarms of ants of all sizes and degrees of viciousness, 
which proceeded to bite you all over with considerable 
vigour. There were not many mosquitoes where the forest 
was dense, but there were millions — in fact, milliards — 
of bees, which rendered your life absolutely unbearable, 
as they clung to your face, hands, and clothes. For¬ 
tunately, they did not sting, but clinging with their claws 
upon your skin they produced such an irritation that you 
were nearly driven mad by it. 
Then there were fetid bugs of huge size, the sickening 
odour of which when they touched you had quite a 
nauseating effect. They seemed to have a particular fond¬ 
ness for settling upon your lips or entering your mouth. 
When by mishap you swallowed them, their taste was 
something too appalling. Once or twice while I was eating 
I had the misfortune to crack one or two under my teeth. 
I had the bad taste of them in my mouth for hours after. 
When we halted for lunch my n|jsn were in a shocking 
condition. I could not quite understand what had hap¬ 
pened. Most of them seemed to suffer from violent 
internal inflammation accompanied by high fever. 
In order to make things as easy as possible for them 
I once more rearranged the loads that afternoon, aban¬ 
doning six hundred rifle cartridges, several tins of hypo¬ 
sulphite of soda, other chemicals, all the developing trays, 
etc., for my photographic work, and a number of valuable 
trinkets I had collected. Much to my sorrow I had also 
to abandon the geological collection, which was too heavy 
to be carried any farther. Then I had to abandon all the 
books which were necessary for working out my astronom- 
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