VARIETIES. 
85 
and  crawled  up  my  legs  and  down  my  back.  I  repeatedly  took  upwards 
of  a  hundred  from  my  legs,  where  the  small  ones  used  to  collect  in  clusters 
on  the  instep  ;  the  sores  which  they  produced  were  not  healed  for  five 
months  afterwards,  and  I  retain  the  scars  to  the  present  day  
Another  pest  is  a  small  midge  or  sand-fly,  which  causes  intolerable  itching 
and  subsequent  irritation,  and  is  in  this  respect  the  most  insufferable  tor- 
ment in  Sikkim ;  the  minutest  rent  in  one's  clothes  is  detected  by  the  acute 
senses  of  this  insatiable  blood-sucker,  which  is  itself  so  small  as  to  be  barely 
visible  without  a  microscope.  We  daily  arrived  at  our  camping  ground, 
streaming  with  blood,  and  mottled  with  the  bites  of  peepsas,  gnats,  midges, 
and  mosquitoes,  besides  being  infested  with  ticks."  (Vol.  II.  p.  18).  "  A 
large  tick  infests  the  small  bamboo,  and  a  more  hateful  insect  I  never  en- 
countered. A  traveller  cannot  avoid  these  insects  coming  on  his  person 
(sometimes  in  great  numbers)  as  he  brushes  through  the  forest ;  they  get 
inside  his  dress  and  insert  the  proboscis  deeply  without  pain.  Buried  head 
and  shoulders  and  retained  by  a  barbed  lancet,  the  tick  is  only  to  be  ex- 
tracted by  force,  which  is  very  painful.  I  have  devised  many  tortures, 
mechanical  and  chemical,  to  induce  these  disgusting  intruders  to  withdraw 
the  proboscis,  but  in  vain."   (Vol.  I.  p.  166.) 
Apothecaries  in  Valparaiso. — They  are  chosen  weekly, — to  keep  their 
shops  open  all  night.  In  case  of  sickness  among  the  citizens,  requiring 
medicine  after  evening  hours,  the  nearest  vigilante,  or  as  we  say,  police- 
man, is  called.  He  takes  the  recipe  and  passes  it  to  the  next,  and  so  on  to 
the  shop  open  for  that  night,  and  the  remedies  are  immediately  returned 
to  the  house,  through  the  same  expeditious  channel,  without  trouble  to  the 
sick. — Life  llius. 
Poison  of  the  African  Toad. — The  Rev.  Francis  Flaming's  recent  work 
on  Southern  Africa,  has  the  following  in  relation  to  reptiles  of  that  region. 
There  is  a  monster  toad  there  which  has  more  terrifying  celebrity  than  the 
puff-adder.  It  is  about  a  foot  long  and  eight  inches  broad,  with  a  spotted 
green  back,  yellow  belly,  and  large  red  eyes,  which  the  Kaffirs  say  spirt 
fire.  All  animals,  as  well  as  man,  abhor  this  loathsome  and  most  shocking 
looking  creature.    To  show  its  poisonous  qualities,  this  fact  is  chronicled. 
A  pedlar  sold  a  cask  of  native  wine  to  three  Dutch  boers  who  lived 
together  on  a  farm  in  the  district  of  Clanwilliam,  in  old  Cape  Colony.  Two 
of  them  died  soon  after  drinking  a  cup  full.  The  third  brother  returned 
from  a  hunting  excursion,  and  on  discovering  the  melancholy  facts  of  their 
death,  accused  the  pedlar  of  murdering  them  with  poisoned  wine.  He  de- 
clared his  innocence,  and  to  show  that  the  wine  had  no  agency  in  the 
death  of  his  brothers,  drank  of  it  himself,  and  in  a  few  minutes  was  a 
corpse  !  On  opening  the  cask  to  discover  the  nature  of  the  poison,  one  of 
those  awful  African  toads  was  found  at  the  bottom. 
