Geology Reference
In-Depth Information
while it rained heavily all night. Another time
'Tasker was
rendering the neighbourhood somewhat objectionable by his
continual vomiting'
, while Cooper and Wray both had fever and
were poisoned by bad bacon. Early morning starts were
frequently delayed by finding that many 'boys' had gone down
with sickness and fever during the night. The 'fever' was of
course malaria, and within a short while of arriving at a place
where the mosquitoes were su~ciently irritating to make
Holmes put up his mosquito net for the first time, he too started
having feverish attacks. He never mentioned this in letters to his
parents to whom he was always in the
'best of health'
and the
'healthiest of the party'
, but as the fevers continued to get worse
and more frequent he eventually confided in Bob:
Most of last week I was ill - not to be mentioned in the
precincts of Low Fell, mind!
[Where his parents lived.]
It wasn't
at all bad, except that one felt so infernally weak. In fact,
towards the end I began to like it - delicate soups for meals
and port wine afterwards and strengthening drinks of milk,
egg and brandy, and champagne to sleep on. And the joy of
not having to get up at 5 a.m. in the cold dark, clammy morn-
ing - it was well worth having one's temperature up to
103!
But I feel singularly devoid of news and interest today -
perhaps because I've had a headache and taking quinine is
beginning to have a depressing effect upon me. Lots of people
can't take it at all as it makes them deaf and even blind for
the time it is in their system - generally only three days. When
we arrived here it was the end of the rainy season which had
caused much malaria and blackwater fever, the latter being
painfully abundant. Blackwater is simply complete physical
break down as the result of months and months of fever.
The name signifies that one's urine turns black, owing to the
passing of blood.
While waiting around for Barton to get well, tribal chiefs to
approve their route, or the recapture of donkeys that had run
