Mosquitoes 



The Indians and local white men assert that 

 the salmon never return to the sea after spawn- 

 ing, which I took leave to doubt. That many 

 millions of the fish that go up to the spawning 

 beds die is a proven fact, but if they all died, 

 then the river would have been nearly choked 

 with fish. 



These rivers are, unfortunately, from a sport- 

 ing point of view, useless, the water being white 

 from the glacial waste. If they were but clean 

 well, I will not enlarge on the theme, but I 

 think I should manage to spend a month or 

 two there in that case, with my eighteen-foot 

 greenheart, in the spring of each year. That 

 would be delightful but for one thing, the 

 mosquitoes which make life in these regions a 

 perfect curse. Nowhere else in all my wander- 

 ings have I seen, or rather felt, anything to 

 compare with them for numbers and viciousness. 

 It is impossible to live in a room in July unless 

 you have an old piece of smouldering tarred 

 sacking in the doorway, to make " a smudge," 

 as the locals have it. The moose and bears even 

 come out on to the flats to get away from their 

 attentions. My three dogs were so badly bitten 

 that their noses and eyes were quite sore and 

 raw from their attacks, whilst I found it im- 

 possible to go to the spring, which was situated 

 just outside a belt of timber near my tent, 

 without first putting on a veil and gloves to 



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