GUN, BOD, AND SADDLE. 



ever he can obtain a footing, up your trousers, down 

 your shirt sleeves or collar, everywhere he will get 

 at his victim. Kill them by thousands, the pha- 

 lanxes apparently undimmished will return to the 

 attack; and even domestic animals do not escape. The 

 unfortunate cow that had been driven up to supply 

 us with milk, I have seen changed from a strawberry 

 to a black, by the myriads of these vampires that 

 clung to her ; and, but that we lit a large smudge* 

 for her to stand over, I believe the poor old creature 

 would have died under the incessant torture and irri- 

 tation. But if the poor cow suffered, so did we, and 

 it was only by constantly lubricating the exposed 

 parts of our persons with oil of tar, or oil of penny- 

 royal, that we were enabled to stand the ordeal. 

 Fortunately, the black fly is hungry during day- 

 light only ; like a respectable citizen, he early goes 

 to rest, and equally early recommences business. 



Next come the mosquitoes ; I have found the same 

 gentry troublesome in the Mediterranean, bad on the 

 Malay Peninsula, worse in the paddy fields of China, 

 but all these lack the 'cuteness and insolence of their 



* Decayed damp wood, which burns slowly and emits a great 

 quantity of smoke. 



