118 DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 



Swarms nevertheless found their way into his hiding- 

 place ; and, in spite of the handkerchiefs with which 

 he had bound up his head, filled his mouth, nostrils, 

 and ears. In the midst of his torment he succeeded in 

 lighting- a lamp, which was extinguished in a moment 

 by such a prodigious number of these insects, that their 

 carcases actually tilled the glass chimney, and formed 

 a large conical heap over the burner. The noise they 

 make in flying cannot be conceived by persons who 

 have only heard gnats in England. It is to all that 

 hear it a most fearful sound '\ Travellers and mariners 

 who have visited warmer climates give a similar ac- 

 count of the torments there inflicted by these little 

 demons. One traveller in Africa complains that after 

 a fifty miles journey they would not sufl'er him to rest, 

 and that his face and hands appeared, from their bites, 

 as if he was infected vv^ith the small-pox in its worst 

 stage''. In the East, at Batavia, Dr. Arnold, a most 

 attentive and accurate observer, relates that their bite 

 is the most venomous he ever felt, occasioning a most 

 intolerable itching, Avliich lasts several days. The sight 

 or sound of a single one either prevented him from 

 going to bed for a whole night, or obliged him to rise 

 many times. This species, which I have examined, is 

 distinct from the common gnat, and appears to be non- 

 descript. It approaches nearest to C. annuhitn^ but 

 the wings are black and not spotted. And Captain 

 Stedman in America, as a proof of the dreadful state 

 to which he aad his soldiers were reduced by them, 

 mentions that they were forced to sleep with their 

 beads thrust into holes made in the earth with their 



'^ Dr. Clarke's IVaveJs, i. 36S. '' Jackson's Marocco, 57. 



