We were most kindly received by the commandant of Ambaca, Arsenio de Carpo, who spoke a little English.  He recommended wine for my debility, and here I took the first glass of that beverage I had taken in Africa.  I felt much refreshed, and could then realize and meditate on the weakening effects of the fever.  They were curious even to myself; for, though I had tried several times since we left Ngio to take lunar observations, I could not avoid confusion of time and distance, neither could I hold the instrument steady, nor perform a simple calculation; hence many of 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