e kept constantly on the cloth. The
cloth being first saturated, it will readily be seen that a very small
drip is required to keep up the dampness. The drip may be arranged,
where convenient, with a small _faucet_ so as to regulate the drop, or
the more primitive method of a little _spiggot_ or _sharpened stick_ put
into a hole made in the vessel, so regulated as to keep up a sufficient
dripping to keep the cloth of sufficient dampness. Simple as this may
appear to the reader, it is an important sanitary measure, besides
adding greatly to the immediate comfort of the traveler or resident in
those regions.

Atmosphere

The atmosphere in this region of the continent is much purer than that
of Liberia and the region round about; and, although incorporated with
odors, these are pleasant and seem familiar to the sense, and not
obnoxious with the rich rank fragrance so sensibly experienced in that
country. There is little, comparatively, of the decayed vegetation,
which sends up malaria from the surface in Liberia; and the immense
fields and plains of grass not under cultivation at the time, are burnt
down during the dry season, thereby bringing to bear, though probably
unawares to them, a sanitary process throughout that extensive country
at least once every year.

Kinds of Disease

_Intermittent fever_, as described in section VI., page 280 on Liberia,
though generally of a mild type, _diarrhoea_, _dysentery_ (neither of
which is difficult to subdue by a little rational treatment),
_opthalmia_, and _umbilical hernia_, and sometimes, but not frequently,
_inguinal hernia_, are the principal diseases. The opthalmia I suspected
as originating from taint, probably having been primarily carried from
the coast, as it was not so frequently met with as to warrant the idea
of its being either a contagion or the effects of poisonous sands or
winds, as supposed to exist. The hernia is caused by the absence of
proper _umbilical attention_ and _abdominal support_ to the child after
_parturition_. Umbilical hernia is fearfully common all through Africa,
I having frequently seen persons, especially females, with the hernial
tumor as large as their own head, and those of little children fully as
large as the head of an infant a month old.

Guinea Worm

A singular disease affects some persons, though I have never seen this
upon a native, and believe it to be peculiar to the region round about
Liberia. The person whose case I e