152 TWENTY YKAKS <>F MOSQUITOS. 



questions reminded Humboldt of a Chinese form of po- 

 liteness, which indicated the ancient state of the country 

 where it took birth. Salutations were formerly made in 

 the Celestial Empire in the following words, "Have you 

 been incommoded in the night by the serpents?" 



" How comfortable must people be in the moon !" said 

 a Salive Indian to Father Gumilla ; " She looks so beau- 

 tiful and so clear, that she must be free from mosquitos." 

 These words which denoted the infancy of a people were 

 remarkable. The satellite of the earth appears to all 

 savage nations the abode of the blessed, the country of 

 abundance. The Esquimaux, who counts among his 

 riches a plank or trunk of a tree, thrown by the currents 

 on a coast destitute of vegetation, sees in the moon plains 

 covered with forests ; the Indian of the forests of Ori- 

 noco beholds there open savannahs, where the inhabit- 

 ants are never stung by mosquitos. 



At Mandavaca the travellers found an old missionary, 

 who told them with an air of sadness, that he had had 

 " his twenty years of mosquitos in America." He de- 

 sired them to look at his legs, " that they might be able 

 to tell one day beyond the sea, what the poor monks 

 suffer in the forests of Cassiquiare." Every sting leav- 

 ing a small darkish brown point, his legs were so 

 speckled that it was difficult to recognise the whiteness 

 of his skin, through the spots of coagulated blood. 

 Wlr.it appeared to the travellers singular, was that 

 the different species did not associate together, and that 

 at different hours of^the day they were stung by distinct 

 species. Every time that the scene changed, and, to use 

 the simple expression of the missionaries, other insects 

 "mounted guard," they had a few minutes, often a quar- 



