at night; but the ticks bit me so hard, and the anxiety to catch stars between the constantly-fleeting clouds, to take their altitudes, perhaps preying on my mind, kept me many whole nights consecutively without obtaining even as much as one wink of sleep--a state of things I had once before suffered from. But there really was no assignable cause for this, unless weakness or feverishness could create wakefulness, and then it would seem surprising that even during the day, or after much fatigue, I rarely felt the slightest inclination to close my eyes. Now, on returning, without anything to excite the mind, and having always pitched the tent at night, I enjoyed cooler nights and perfect rest. Of diseases, the more common are remittent and intermittent fevers, and these are the most important ones to avoid, since they bring so many bad effects after them. In the first place, they attack the brain, and often deprive one of his senses. Then there is no rallying from the weakness they produce. A little attack, which one would only laugh at in India, prostrates you for a week or more, and this weakness brings on other disorders: cramp, for instance, of the most painful kind, very often follows. When lying in bed, my toes have sometimes curled round and looked me in the face; at other times, when I have put my hand behind my back, it has stuck there until, with the other hand, I have seized the contracted muscles, and warmed the part affected with the natural heat, till, relaxation taking place, I was able to get it back. Another nasty thing is the blindness which I have already described, and which attacked another of our party in a manner exactly similar to my complaint. He, like myself, left Africa with a misty veil floating before his eyes. There are other disorders, but so foreign to my experience that I dare not venture to describe them. For as doctors disagree about the probable causes of their appearance, I most likely would only mislead if I tried to account for them. However, I think I may safely say they emanate from general debility, produced by the much-to-be-dreaded fevers.