This part of the negotiations ended with presenting some "satin
stripe" and rum to the Nchinu and Manbuku Prata, and with shaking
hands--a dangerous operation. The people are cleanly; they wash
when rising, and before as well as after every meal; they are
always bathing, yet from prince to pauper, from baby to grey
beard, they are affected with a psora known by its Portuguese
name, "sarnas." The Congo "fiddle" appears first between the
articulations of the fingers, and bleaches the hands and wrists
as if it were leprosy. Yet I did not see a single case of true
lepra Arabum, or its modifications, the huge Barbadoes leg
(elephantiasis), and the sarcoma scrotale and sarcocele of
Zanzibar and East Africa. From the extremities the gale extends
over the body, especially the shins, and the people, who appear
in the perpetual practice of scalpturigo, attribute it to the
immoderate use of palm wine. I observed, however, that Europeans,
in the river, who avoid the liquor, are hardly ever free from
this foul blood-poison, and a jar of sulphur mixture is a common
article upon the table. Hydrocele is not unfrequent, but hardly
so general as in the Eastern Island; one manner of white man, a
half caste from Macao, was suffering with serpigo, and boasted of
it.
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