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 pain and itching, which commences ascending the limb until the poison imbibed reaches the abdomen, where it soon causes violent vomiting and purging.

Where these effects do not follow, as we found afterward at Tete, fever sets in; and I was assured by intelligent Portuguese there that death has sometimes been the result of this fever.