THE ONLY WAY TO KEEP THEM OFF. 117 
presents I never beheld, covered literally and 
truly from head to heel with sand-flies. Each of 
these little harpies looks pink. Their skins, 
stretched to a state of transparency, reveals the 
colour of the fluid they are gorged with. You 
would not know that it was a mule if you 
stumbled by accident on it, so fearfully is poor 
Johnson swollen from the poisoned punctures. 
We did all we could to relieve his sufferings, lit 
a fire, and smoked off the flies, washed and greased 
him, but all to no purpose. About two hours 
after he was brought in, he died. Who would 
have dreamed such pigmies could kill a powerful 
mule in two or three hours! 
The only plan of protecting yourself and your 
animals is to hght large smouldering fires so as 
to produce voluminous clouds of smoke. This 
the brilots are unable to stand ; the poor animals 
know it, and crowd round the smoking embers, 
hustling one another in their anxiety to be the 
nearest. The Indians all adopt this method, and 
wherever Indian horses are grazing in summer 
time, immense fallen trees that are sufficiently 
dry to burn are lighted from end to end,and round 
these all day long the horses crowd. Atnight the 
sand-flies give but little trouble, and, like sensible 
insects, take a few hours’ repose. Most appro- 
