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 niggers and fleas! It was horrible. Hot as a New York roof-garden and nearly as uncomfortable. There I lay, rotting with a nameless fever, no one with me but an incompetent Dutch doctor, who was more ignorant of the nature of my complaint than I was myself, and a half-naked aboriginal, who wanted to call in the witch-doctor and who, when burked in this direction, attempted a few amateur charms, which at least had the merit of awakening my interest. There I lay in a rude thatched hut with a roof of caked cow-dung; I couldn't eat, drink, or speak. I thought it was the end. Funny, but the only sound that reached my ears, after a few days, was the chattering of monkeys, and later they told me there were no monkeys about at all.

Over my head on the wall, hung a dirty thonged whip. Whether its purpose was to beat women or oxen, I don't know, but, you will remember, perhaps, that sometimes, when I awaken from sleep in the middle of the night, I have a strange habit of holding one arm straight up in the air, at right angles with my body. Well, while I was ill, there it was, most of the time, straight up! One night, when my strength was fast ebbing away, I reached higher and grasped the whip. Then I grew drowsy; everything seemed to turn blood-red, even the palm-leaves that waved across the opening made by the doorway of the hut, and it was very hot, unspeakably roasting. Now, through this same doorway, walked a woman in a rusty black robe and, although