“This poor doomed girl had been suffering--no, not suffering; for, except when forcibly aroused, there appeared to be no uneasiness,--but she had been lingering two months in a disease peculiar to Africa: it is called the ‘Sleepy Disease,’ and is considered incurable. The persons attacked by it are those who take little exercise, and live principally on vegetables, particularly cassady and rice. Some ascribe it altogether to the cassady, which is supposed to be strongly narcotic--not improbably the climate has much influence, the disease being most prevalent in low and marshy situations. Irresistible drowsiness continually weighs down the patient, who can be kept awake only for the few moments necessary to take a little food. When this lethargy has lasted three or four months, death comes with a tread that the patient cannot hear--and makes the slumber but a little more sound. “I found the aspect of Maumee’s beautiful granddaughter inconceivably affecting. It was strange to behold her so quietly involved in sleep from which it might be supposed she would awake so full of youthful life, and yet to know that this was no refreshing slumber, but a spell in which she was fading away from the eyes that loved her. Whatever might chance, be it grief or joy, the effect would be the same. Whoever should shake her by the arm--whether the accents of a friend fell fully on the ear, or those of strangers like ourselves,--the only response would be that troubled cry, as of a spirit that hovered on the confines of both worlds and could have sympathy with neither. And yet, withal, it seemed so easy to cry to her, ‘Awake! Enjoy your life! Cast off this noontide slumber!’ But only the peal of the last trumpet will summon her out of that mysterious sleep.” Another and later account of this singular disease has recently been given by M. Dumoutier,[144] surgeon in the French Navy. According to this observer, the affection commonly called the “sleep-disease” (maladie du sommeil) is met with only among the negroes of the coast, and principally those of the Gaboon and of Congo, becoming more rare towards the north. The most prominent symptoms are an irresistible tendency to sleep, and a feeling of torpor and numbness. The patient does not complain of pain, and yet there is a general weakness of the limbs, the gait is tottering, the sensibility is perverted, and the hands imperfectly grasp the objects they attempt to seize. During the sleep the fecal matters and the urine are passed involuntarily. The respiration is normal, and the digestion regular. These were the principal symptoms observed in those cases which came under M. Dumoutier’s notice: observing the disease only in the persons of captives coming from the interior, he ascribes it to nostalgia, _ennui_, and other moral causes. Two autopsies made by his colleagues revealed no abnormal condition of the brain, the spinal cord, or their membranes.