The jiggers are less troublesome in the wet season. But with the dry season their numbers increase rapidly, and towards the close of the season the soil and the sand are fairly alive with them. If possible, missionary boarding-schools ought to have vacation at this time; for the white missionary is sure to get them in the schoolroom; and the dormitories, which usually have only earthen floors, become so infested with them that even native children are often kept awake at night, and the amount of discipline necessary to make them keep their feet in order may demoralize the school. There are always children, large and small, who need no supervision, and are sufficiently self-respecting to keep their feet clean; but their task is made exceedingly difficult by the presence in the same dormitory of those who breed jiggers by thousands. As a rule, with but few exceptions, the children who keep their feet clean are those who have been in the school before and are known as mission-boys and mission-girls. In my boys’ boarding-school of later years one would see a strange sight each day during the dry season. The whole school filed out at recess and sat down along either side of the path leading to the mission-house. A committee of boys examined the feet of the others and reported to me the name of every boy who had jiggers in his feet; while I stood with note-book in hand and wrote down their names. Then when the food was given out at noon these boys were left without food until their feet were pronounced clean. The larger boys were responsible for those of their own town or family who were too small to attend to their own feet. I once kept a boy more than a day without food until he removed his jiggers, and one hopeless boy I at last expelled from the school for the offense. For rigid insistence upon this discipline, I felt, lay close to moral instruction. The white man of course suffers from jiggers, but not so much as the native, because of his shoes, his cleaner house, and because his feet are more sensitive, so that he becomes aware of them after several days at the most, when they can be removed without injury, if it is very carefully done. After one has been in Africa a length of time he will detect their presence as soon as they begin to burrow. Some white men have a native boy examine their feet every night or morning; for the boy has very sharp eyes, and he removes the jigger with surprising skill. It can be done with a pin; a needle is better and a pair of tweezers is still better. If the sac that is formed after several days be broken in the removal, it may cause a sore that will take some time to heal. Indeed, if one be greatly reduced in health and the blood in bad condition, it may not heal at all until he leaves the country on furlough. I have known men who for weeks were not able to wear a shoe because of jigger sores.