MOSQUITOES. 



253 



as if loth to leave us. In parting I gave him a canis- 

 ter of powder, a pocket compass, and a small spy- 

 glass, to keep as mementos of me, and shook his 

 honest hand with as much regret as I ever did that of 

 a white man. I shall long remember him — he is a 

 man of deeds and not of words — kind, gentle, delicate 

 in his feelings, honest and true as steel. I would 

 start on a journey of a thousand miles in the woods 

 with him alone, without the slightest anxiety, al- 

 though I carried a million of dollars about my person. 

 I never lay down beside a trustier heart than his, and 

 never slept sounder than I have with one arm thrown 

 across his brawny chest. 



There is one thing I have not mentioned, which 

 mars very much a tramp through these woods — I 

 mean the mosquitoes and black flies. The latter dis- 

 appear about the first of July, but the former are like 

 the locusts of Egypt. However, I was troubled less 

 than I anticipated — on the lakes the fresh wind drives 

 them away, and at night your camp fire keeps them 

 off. In the woods of a damp, still morning, or just ;it 

 evening, away from a fire, they assail one by bat- 

 talions. Hence, fishing along the inlets or outlets is 

 often a protracted agony. I once stood on a rock and 



