102 REPORTING PROGRESS 



breed in the sea water of the Adriatic ; there are no 

 larvae in the Grand Canal. It 'is only a matter of 

 simple sanitation. Venice is unhealthy during the 

 summer months (if not all the year round), as Port 

 Said was ; and it is largely due to mosquitos. It is 

 such a pity. 



There, whether one rests in the hotel lounge or 

 outside a cafe, or idles away an hour in a gondola 

 exploring the water byways, one is incessantly 

 scratching and grumbling, or striving to smite these 

 irritating insects which have just risen like a miasm 

 from a Venetian cesspool. How can the stones of 

 Venice be appreciated under such conditions ? Then 

 the traveller returns disgusted and irritated to his hot 

 bedroom at the hotel, and sits by the open window 

 to enjoy the breeze and the oft-repeated, twangy 

 Neapolitan serenade that is being " breathed " be- 

 neath him. His thoughts fly back to the Doges, and 

 the Rule of the Ten perhaps, to Byron, or to Ruskin, 

 only to be suddenly awakened to the hard and matter- 

 of-fact present by the bite of a Culex or the " ping " of a 

 Stegomyia the flight of the mosquito is quicker than 

 his thought. At last the traveller is driven to bed, 

 pursued by this persistent pest, and he lies there 

 panting, sweating, and cursing under the mosquito 

 net. Then does his sympathy go out to those Ancient 

 Venetians who forsook their home to settle elsewhere 

 in the Mediterranean and the Levant, where they 

 built picturesque old cities on high walls that were 

 surrounded by sea. 



Natives and persons long resident in the tropics 



