The Moon Has No
Evil Influence In This Country, So Far As We Know.
We have lain and
looked up at her, till sweet sleep closed our eyes, unharmed.
Four
or five of our men were affected with moon-blindness at Tette; though
they had not slept out of doors there, they became so blind that
their comrades had to guide their hands to the general dish of food;
the affection is unknown in their own country. When our posterity
shall have discovered what it is which, distinct from foul smells,
causes fever, and what, apart from the moon, causes men to be moon-
struck, they will pity our dulness of perception.
The men cut a very small quantity of grass for themselves, and sleep
in fumbas or sleeping-bags, which are double mats of palm-leaf, six
feet long by four wide, and sewn together round three parts of the
square, and left open only on one side. They are used as a
protection from the cold, wet, and mosquitoes, and are entered as we
should get into our beds, were the blankets nailed to the top,
bottom, and one side of the bedstead.
A dozen fires are nightly kindled in the camp; and these, being
replenished from time to time by the men who are awakened by the
cold, are kept burning until daylight. Abundance of dry hard wood is
obtained with little trouble; and burns beautifully. After the great
business of cooking and eating is over, all sit round the camp-fires,
and engage in talking or singing.
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