the positions of this part of the route were left till
my return from Loanda. Often, on getting up in the mornings, I found my
clothing as wet from perspiration as if it had been dipped in water.
In vain had I tried to learn or collect words of the Bunda, or dialect
spoken in Angola. I forgot the days of the week and the names of my
companions, and, had I been asked, I probably could not have told
my own. The complaint itself occupied many of my thoughts. One day I
supposed that I had got the true theory of it, and would certainly cure
the next attack, whether in myself or companions; but some new symptoms
would appear, and scatter all the fine speculations which had sprung up,
with extraordinary fertility, in one department of my brain.

This district is said to contain upward of 40,000 souls. Some ten or
twelve miles to the north of the village of Ambaca there once stood
the missionary station of Cahenda, and it is now quite astonishing to
observe the great numbers who can read and write in this district. This
is the fruit of the labors of the Jesuit and Capuchin missionaries, for
they taught the people of Ambaca; and ever since the expulsion of the
teachers by the Marquis of Pombal, the natives have continued to
teach each other. These devoted men are still held in high estimation
throughout the country to this day. All speak well of them (os padres
Jesuitas); and, now that they are gone from this lower sphere, I could
not help wishing that these our Roman Catholic fellow-Christians had
felt it to be their duty to give the people the Bible, to be a light to
their feet when the good men themselves were gone.

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 t