346 ARCTIC VOYAGES. Chap. X. 



they were loosened from durance, became reani- 

 mated, and took their flight into the air. 



Mr. Hood in his journey also makes an observa- 

 tion of a different kind regarding this most annoy- 

 ing animal. 



" We had sometimes before procured a little rest, by 

 closing the tent, and burning wood, or flashing gunpowder 

 within, the smoke driving the musquitoes into the crannies 

 of the ground. But this remedy was now ineffectual, though 

 we employed it so perseveringly as to hazard suffocation ; 

 they swarmed under our blankets, goring us with their en- 

 venomed trunks, and steeping our clothes in blood. We 

 rose at daylight in a fever, and our misery was unmitigated 

 during our whole stay. 



" The food of the musquito is blood, which it can extract 

 by penetrating the hide of a buffalo ; and if it is not dis- 

 turbed, it gorges itself so as to swell its body into a trans- 

 parent globe. The wound does not swell, like that of the 

 African musquito, but it is infinitely more painful ; and when 

 multiplied an hundred fold, and continued for so many suc- 

 cessive days, it becomes an evil of such magnitude, that cold, 

 famine, and every other concomitant of an inhospitable cli- 

 mate must yield the pre-eminence to it. It chases the buf- 

 falo to the plains, irritating him to madness ; and the rein- 

 deer to the sea-shore, from which they do not return till the 

 scourge has ceased." — pp. 188-89. 



To return to Captain Franklin and his companion 

 Back. A description is given of the sledges, the 

 coricles, the snow-shoes, and the clothing of a win- 

 ter-traveller in this cold and dreary climate ; a re- 

 petition of which would afford but little entertain- 

 ment to the general reader. Dr. Richardson, in 



