In one last desperate effort to turn the conversation from the dead to the living, the missionary remarked, with considerable force: “But people don’t all die of fever out here! What about those that don’t?” “Oh, no,” he replies; “they die of many other things besides fever. Let’s see;”—and he counts them off on his fingers: “There’s kraw-kraw. Kraw-kraw is an awful nasty disease that just decomposes a man’s legs and nothing can stop it. “There’s dysentery. A lot of people die of that. There’s every kind of tuberculosis. There’s abscesses. There’s pneumonia. There’s ulcers——” “And kraw-kraw,” says another Old Coaster, coming up behind him. “Why, there was my friend So-and-so——” “I’ve already said kraw-kraw,” says the other, and he passes on to the next finger. “There’s Portuguese itch. Maybe you think you know what itch is, but you don’t if you’ve never had the Portuguese itch of the coast. “There’s the Guinea worm. It favours the leg and is sometimes ten feet long. You may possibly get it out if you don’t try to wind it from the tail; but anyway it leaves a wound that doesn’t heal in this climate. “There’s enlarged spleen. There’s——” “Kraw-kraw,” says another arrival. “Why, there was So-and-so——” “I _said_ kraw-kraw,” answers the leader. “There’s smallpox—in frequent epidemics,” he continues. “And there are so many other parasites feeding on a man, inside and out, that one who has lived on this coast for several years ought to be able to furnish in his own body a complete course for a class of medical students.” “Did you mention kraw-kraw?” says a late arrival. “Kraw-kraw?” interposed the missionary. “I know all about kraw-kraw. The highest authorities on tropical diseases have declared that it is not a physical, but a mental, malady that attacks the Old Coaster. The victim imagines that he is an old crow, and he goes around flapping his wings and crying, ‘Kraw-kraw.’” One morning at the breakfast-table, when the conversation turned for a moment to the cheerful subject of cocktails, a youngster exclaimed: “Gentlemen, gentlemen, I protest against this cheerfulness. For a whole minute the conversation has been utterly irrelevant. Men are mortal and the dead are accumulating. Let us therefore return to the obsequies.” A solemn-eyed Old Coaster leaned towards his neighbour and in a loud, sepulchral whisper remarked: “I give _him_ a month.” “I give him two weeks,” replied the other. Many of those who came aboard, especially those from the more lonely places, looked like haunted men. Extreme isolation invites madness. There were moments when the heart of the traveller faltered or stood still, almost crushed by the pathos and tragedy of it all.