A Thousand Miles in a Machilla 



and goes to bed at sunrise, but these mosquitoes 

 appeared to be sleepless; they fed on us at all 

 hours, and were as hungry at mid-day as the 

 ordinary insect is at sunset; they did not belong 

 to the reeds and rushes of the river bed, but 

 harboured in the masses of vegetation and grass 

 round the house. Our host appeared not to mind 

 them; long residence at Liwonde^ had apparently 

 inured him to their attacks. 



One of the greatest trials contingent on residence 

 in the tropics is the necessity of sacrificing all that 

 is pleasant to the eye to the stern laws of sanitation. 

 Gardens have their drawbacks as well as their 

 delights ; when there is neither vegetation nor water 

 in your immediate neighbourhood you will live amid 

 ugly, hot, uninteresting surroundings certainly, but 

 you will be free from mosquitoes. If you cultivate 

 a garden to enjoy a cool, restful, ever-interesting 

 outlook you will probably pay for it with malaria. 

 Which are you to choose ? 



Mr. Cardew told us these mosquitoes were not 

 the fever-carrying kind, and that curiously enough 

 in the wet season the others (Anopheles) came up 

 from the river in numbers to replace them. 



After lunching with Mr. Cardew we started off 

 again at 3 p.m., the sun being certainly very hot. 

 We found the river almost at its lowest, the banks 

 covered with masses of vegetation, and the channel 

 obstructed by the reeds and rushes growing on the 

 river bed. At Liwonde the Shire is normally about 

 three hundred yards broad, and when there is 



^ See p. 125. 

 44 



