72 The Wild Animals of Palesti::h. 



ferocity by about 20, and picture him as lively indoors by night, 

 as without, by day, in Scotland, and you have a very good notion 

 of the mosquito. No human being, at least European, dreamed 

 of sleeping without a net thrown completely over the bed, and 

 carefully tucked in. Woe be to you if a single strand of the net 

 was broken. Although a net fastened to the canopy of the bed, 

 and thrown completely over it, was a pretty wide stretch of 

 country for a mosquito to hunt, he would find that broken 

 strand, and squeeze himself through the small aperture with 

 unerring certainty. After mosquitos come a class of insects of 

 which I positively dread to speak, although tliey probably score 

 a deeper and more lasting mark on the memory of European 

 visitors to Palestine than all the rest put togetlier. Dismal 

 realities, to which one has become inured in early childhood, soon 

 get their edge blunted, and I might try your nerves too severely. 

 I could tell you facts which would, I am sure, send you shudder- 

 ing home to sleepless couches haunted by horrible nightmares. 

 There are light and agile insects which are as an arrow that flieth 

 by day. There are others, more dreaded of cleanly British 

 housekeepers, which are a pestilence that walketh in darkness. 

 1 will only say that with care you may keep your houses fairly 

 free from the intruder. Were houses there similar to ours, with 

 wooden floors and skirting boards, wall papers, carpets, heavy 

 hangings, &c., I believe your bones would be picked. But in our 

 house, one of the ordinary ones, there was not, I think, a particle 

 of woodwork beyond doors and window-frames. Roofs and floors 

 were of stone or cement, the walls were all whitewashed, floors 

 covered with matting, and upholstery all of light material, with 

 little plaiting or folding. In the summer the bedsteads, all of 

 iron, were taken down every week and laid out for a few hours 

 in the sunlight, at the hottest part of the day. Then all joints 

 and screws were carefully poisoned before they were put up again. 

 In this way a fair amount of freedom from discomfort was 

 secured, and for the rest, as with snakes, scorpions, and otlier 

 similar inflictions, it is wonderful to .see how soon people learn to 

 face an evil they know to be inevitable with a very fair amount 

 of mental tranquility. 



