rarely, if ever, required; and that frequently it does much harm; but
they used to bleed for everything. Many savages know how to cup: they
commonly use a piece ofa horn as the cup, and they either suck at a hole
in the top of the horn, to produce the necessary vacuum, or they make a
blaze as we do, but with a wisp of grass.

Illnesses.--Fevers of all kinds, diarrhoea, and rheumatism, are the
plagues that most afflict travellers; ophthalmia often threatens them.
Change of air, from the flat country up into the hills, as soon as the
first violence of the illness is past, works wonders in hastening and
perfecting a cure.

Fever.--The number of travellers that have fallen victims to fever in
certain lands is terrible: it is a matter of serious consideration
whether any motives, short of imperious duty, justify a person in braving
a fever-stricken country. In the ill-fated Niger expedition, three
vessels were employed, of which the 'Albert' stayed the longest time in
the river, namely two months and two days. Her English crew consisted of
62 men; of these, 55 caught fever in the river, and 23 died. Of the
remaining seven, only two ultimately escaped scot-free; the others
suffering, more or less severely, on their return to England. In Dr.
McWilliams's Medical History of this expedition, it is laid down that the
Niger fever, which may be considered as a type of pestilential fever
generally, usually sets in sixteen days after exposure to the malaria;
and that one attack, instead of acclimatising the patient, seems to
render him all the more liable to a second. Every conceivable precaution
known in those days, had been taken to ensure the health of the crew of
the 'Albert.' A great discovery of modern days is the power of quinine to
keep off many types of fever. A person would, now, have little to fear in
taking a passage in a Niger steamer; supposing that vessels ran regularly