When Sleeping In The House Of The Commandant, An Insect,
Well Known In The Southern Country By The Name Tampan, Bit My Foot.
It Is A Kind Of Tick, And Chooses By Preference The Parts
Between The Fingers Or Toes For Inflicting Its Bite.
It is seen
from the size of a pin's head to that of a pea, and is common
in all the native huts in this country.
It sucks the blood until quite full,
and is then of a dark blue color, and its skin so tough and yielding
that it is impossible to burst it by any amount of squeezing with the fingers.
I had felt the effects of its bite in former years, and eschewed
all native huts ever after; but as I was here again assailed
in a European house, I shall detail the effects of the bite.
These are a tingling sensation of mingled pain and itching,
which commences ascending the limb until the poison imbibed
reaches the abdomen, where it soon causes violent vomiting and purging.
Where these effects do not follow, as we found afterward at Tete,
fever sets in; and I was assured by intelligent Portuguese there
that death has sometimes been the result of this fever.
The anxiety my friends at Tete manifested to keep my men
out of the reach of the tampans of the village made it evident
that they had seen cause to dread this insignificant insect.
The only inconvenience I afterward suffered from this bite
was the continuance of the tingling sensation in the point bitten
for about a week.
MAY 12TH. As we were about to start this morning, the commandant,
Senhor Arsenio, provided bread and meat most bountifully for my use
on the way to the next station, and sent two militia soldiers as guides,
instead of our Cassange corporal, who left us here. About midday
we asked for shelter from the sun in the house of Senhor Mellot, at Zangu,
and, though I was unable to sit and engage in conversation,
I found, on rising from his couch, that he had at once proceeded
to cook a fowl for my use; and at parting he gave me a glass of wine,
which prevented the violent fit of shivering I expected that afternoon.
The universal hospitality of the Portuguese was most gratifying,
as it was quite unexpected; and even now, as I copy my journal,
I remember it all with a glow of gratitude.
We spent Sunday, the 14th of May, at Cabinda, which is one of the stations
of the sub-commandants, who are placed at different points
in each district of Angola as assistants of the head-commandant, or chefe.
It is situated in a beautiful glen, and surrounded by plantations
of bananas and manioc. The country was gradually becoming more picturesque
the farther we proceeded west. The ranges of lofty blue mountains of Libollo,
which, in coming toward Ambaca, we had seen thirty or forty miles
to our south, were now shut from our view by others nearer at hand,
and the gray ranges of Cahenda and Kiwe, which, while we were in Ambaca,
stood clearly defined eight or ten miles off to the north, were now close
upon our right.
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