ZANCUDOS AND MOSQUITOS. 151 



hunters to take lier back, " because she and her children 

 (a Httle hairy also) were wearj of living far from the 

 church and the sacraments." The travellers did not see 

 this mythical hairy mati. 



They were horribly tormented in the day by mosqui- 

 tos and the jejen, a small venomous fl}^, and at night by 

 the zancudos. Their hands began to swell considerably, 

 and this swelling increased daily till their arrival on the 

 banks of the Temi. The means that were employed to 

 escape from these little plagues were extraordinary. The 

 good missionary Bernardo Zea, who passed his life tor- 

 mented by mosquitos, had constructed near the church, 

 on a scaffolding of palm-trees, a small apartment, in 

 which the travellers breathed more freely. To this they 

 went up in the evening, by means of a ladder, to dry 

 their plants and -write their journal. The missionary 

 had observed, that the insects abounded more particu- 

 larly in the lowest strata of the atmosphere, that which 

 reaches from the ground to the height of twelve or fifteen 

 feet. At Maypures the Indians quitted the village at 

 night, to go and sleep on the little islets in the midst of 

 the cataracts. There they enjoyed some rest, the mos- 

 quitos appearing to shun air loaded with vapours. The 

 travellers found evervwhere fewer in the middle of the 

 river than near its banks. 



In the missions of the Orinoco, in the villages on the 

 banks of the river, surrounded by immense forests, the 

 plague of the mosquitos, afforded an inexhaustible sub- 

 ject of conversation. When two persons met in the 

 morning, the first questions they addressed to each other 

 were : " How did you find the zancudos during the 

 night? How are vre to-day for the mosquitos ?" These 



