DEC. 1770 ILLNESS OF BANKS AND SOLANDER 375 



told us that it did not commonly shift so suddenly, and 

 were loth to believe that the westerly winds were really set 

 in for several days after. 



Dr. Solander had recovered enough to be able to walk 

 about the house, but gathered strength very slowly. I 

 myself was given to understand that curing my ague was of 

 very little consequence while the cause remained in the 

 badness of the air. The physician, however, bled me, and 

 gave me frequent gentle purges, which he told me would 

 make the attacks less violent, as was really the case. They 

 came generally about two or three in the afternoon, a time 

 when everybody in these climates is always asleep, and by 

 four or five I had generally recovered sufficiently to get up 

 and walk in the garden. The rainy season had now set in, 

 and we had generally some rain in the night ; the days were 

 more or less cloudy, and sometimes wet ; this, however, was 

 not always the case, for we once had a whole week of very 

 clear weather. 



The frogs in the ditches, whose voices were ten times 

 louder than those of European ones, made a noise almost in- 

 tolerable on nights when rain was to be expected ; and the 

 mosquitos or gnats, who had been sufficiently troublesome 

 even in the dry time, were now breeding in every splash of 

 water, and became innumerable, especially in the moonlight 

 nights. Their stings, however, though painful and trouble- 

 some enough at the time, never continued to itch above half 

 an hour ; so that no man in the daytime was troubled with 

 the bites of the night before. Indeed, I never met with any 

 whose bites caused swellings remaining twenty-four hours, 

 except the midges or gnats of Lincolnshire (which are 

 identically the same insect as is called mosquito in most 

 parts of the world) and the sand flies of North America. 1 



1st December. About this time Dr. Solander had a return 

 of his fever, which increased gradually for four or five days, 

 when he became once more in imminent danger. 



*7th. We received the agreeable news of the ship's arrival 

 in the road, having completed all her rigging, etc., and having 

 1 Alluding to his experience in Newfoundland in 1766. 



