18 TRAVELS IN THE CONFEDERATION 



size. Whoever has made the acquaintance of these 

 small enemies of the nights' rest will know that the 

 buzzing of a few of them is sufficient to banish sleep 

 for hours. I had covered myself with a cloak and a 

 thick sail, and the night being extremely warm I suf- 

 fered as in a perfect sweat-bath, but the musquetoes 

 found their way through. The complete stillness of 

 the night gave them liberty to swarm about at will, for 

 in windy weather they do not appear, and when high, 

 cold winds set in from the northwest such regions as 

 these are for a time swept of musquetoes, either be- 

 numbed by the cold or carried out to sea. 



After daybreak we were taken to the house of the 

 man who owns the ferry, the only ferry thereabouts, a 

 few hundred yards from the landing place but not be- 

 yond the territory of the musquetoes. Before the door 

 stood a great vat, in which a wet-wood fire was kindled ; 

 the musquetoes were kept off by the smoke in which 

 the people of the place were making themselves com- 

 fortable. The owner of the ferry was a Doctor, no less, 

 and admitted with the greatest candor that he had 

 chosen such an infernal situation solely with the praise- 

 worthy design of making, that is gaining, money. 



At this place I made the acquaintance of an Ameri- 

 can Captain. The day before, on his way to New York, 

 he had been arrested at Staten Island by a young 

 British officer, roughly handled and sent back because 

 he had no pass to show from the Governor of New 

 York. He was telling his story to the company in the 

 smoke, which had by degrees become more numerous, 

 and there was anger and vengeance in his words and 

 gestures. I found myself in a similar position, the 

 other way about; I was now in the jurisdiction of the 



