Page:West African Studies.djvu/281

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SPECIFIC FOR INSOMNIA
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half through they "hear a voice I cannot hear that's calling them away;" or remember something "that must be done at once;" or, worst of all, go off straightway to sleep, after once or twice feebly enquiring, "Where is that place?" Of course I am glad that my little knowledge has been the comfort it has to several people. Once, when I was homeward-bound along the Gold Coast, three gentlemen came on board very ill from fever, and homeward-bound, too. Their worst symptom was agonising insomnia. "Not a wink," they assured my friend the Irish purser, had they had for a couple of months." We'll soon put that right for you on board this boat," he said, in his characteristically kind and helpful manner. To my great surprise, that same afternoon he deliberately tackled me on the subject of the real reason that induced Osai Kwofi Kari Kari to cross the Prah in January, 1873. I was charmed at this unwonted display of interest in the subject, and hoped also to gain further information on it from those recently shipped Gold Coasters in the smoking-room. I was getting on fairly well with it; and my friend the purser, instead of having "some manifests to write out," as was usual with him, nobly battled with the intricacies of the subject for a good half hour and more; and then, just when I was in the middle of some topographical elucidation, accompanied by questions, up that purser rose, yawned and stretched himself, and hailed the doctor, who happened to be passing by. "What do you think of that, doctor?" he said, pointing to the settee. "Do them a power of good," says his compatriot the medico. Turning round, I saw the three victims of insomnia grouped together; the middle man had his head pillowed on the oilclothed top of the table, and reclining, more or less gracefully, against him on either side