about in my mind, as Mr. Bunyan would say, as to what to do with
them. "Go and learn your tropics," said Science. Where on earth am
I to go? I wondered, for tropics are tropics wherever found, so I
got down an atlas and saw that either South America or West Africa
must be my destination, for the Malayan region was too far off and
too expensive. Then I got Wallace's Geographical Distribution and
after reading that master's article on the Ethiopian region I
hardened my heart and closed with West Africa. I did this the more
readily because while I knew nothing of the practical condition of
it, I knew a good deal both by tradition and report of South East
America, and remembered that Yellow Jack was endemic, and that a
certain naturalist, my superior physically and mentally, had come
very near getting starved to death in the depressing society of an
expedition slowly perishing of want and miscellaneous fevers up the
Parana.

My ignorance regarding West Africa was soon removed. And although
the vast cavity in my mind that it occupied is not even yet half
filled up, there is a great deal of very curious information in its
place. I use the word curious advisedly, for I think many seemed to
translate my request for practical hints and advice into an
advertisement that "Rubbish may be shot here." This same
information is in a state of great confusion still, although I have
made heroic efforts to codify it. I find, however, that it can
almost all be got in under the following different headings, namely
and to wit: -

The dangers of West Africa.
The disagreeables of West Africa.
The diseases of West Africa.