As the men were being transported across the river opposite the landing-place of the Bavikai on the 4th, I saw a dozen Madis in a terrible condition from the ravages of the small-pox, and crowding them, until they jostled them in admirable unconcern, were some two dozen of the tribe as yet unaffected by the disease. This little fact put me on a line of reflections which, had a first-class shorthand writer been near, might have been of value to other thoughtless persons. Never did ignorance appear to me so foolish. Its utter unsuspectingness was pitiful. Over these human animals I saw the shadow of Death, in the act to strike. But I said to myself, I see the terrible shade over them ready to smite them with the disease which will make them a horror, and finally kill them. When I fall also it will probably be from some momentary thoughtlessness, when I shall either be too absorbed, or too confident to observe the dark shadow impending over me. However, Mambu Kwa Mungu, neither they nor I can avoid our fate.
Among my notes on the 5th of October I find a few remarks about Malaria.
While we have travelled through the forest region we have suffered less from African fevers, than we did in the open country between Mataddi and Stanley Pool.
A long halt in the forest clearings soon reminds us that we are not yet so acclimated as to utterly escape the effects of malaria. But when within the inclosed woods our agues are of a very mild form, soon extinguished by a timely dose of quinine.
On the plateau of Kavalli and Undussuma, Messrs. Jephson, Parke, and myself were successively prostrated by fever, and the average level of the land was over 4500 feet above the sea.
On descending to the Nyanza plain, 2500 feet lower, we were again laid up with fierce attacks.
At Banana Point, which is at sea-level, ague is only too common.
At Boma, 80 feet higher, the ague is more common still.
At Vivi, there were more cases than elsewhere, and the station was about 250 feet higher than Boma, and not a swamp was near it.
At Stanley Pool, about 1100 feet above sea level, fever of a pernicious form was prevalent.