JIONKEYS — MOSQUITOES. 213 



Father Gili gravely relates the history of a lady of San CHAP.XVIll. 

 Carlos, who passed several years with one, which she n,,irv imin of 

 left only hccause she and the children she had to him timwooOa. 

 were tired of livings far from the church and the sacra- 

 ments. In all his travels in America, llunil^oldt found 

 no traces of a large anthropomorjDhous monkey, although 

 in several places, very distant from each other, he heard 

 similar accounts of it. 



Flies of various kinds unceasingly tormented the tra- Torment 

 vellers ; mosquitoes and simulia by day, and zancudoes '""" ^""^^ 

 by night. 'J'he missionary, observing that the insects 

 were more abundant in the lowest sti'atum of the atmo- 

 sphere, had constructed near the church a small 

 apartment supported upon palm-trunks, to which they 

 retired in the evening to dry their plants and write their 

 jotirnals.* At IMayjiures the Indians leave the village 

 at night, and sleep on the little islands in the midst of 

 the cataracts, where the insects are less numerous. 

 Humboldt gives an elaborate account of these creatures, Hiunboldt's 

 of which, however, the most interesting particulars "^^' *" 

 alone can be here extracted. In the missions of the 

 Orinoco, when two persons meet in the morning the 

 first questions are, — " How did you tind the zancudoes 

 during the night ? How are we to-day for the mos- 

 quitoes I" The plague of these animals, however, is not 

 so general in the torrid zone as is commonly believed. 



* A similar expedient was tried by a British officer who had 

 joined the insiir^^eiits under Bolivar, liilfJ. "• Tliese insects," (the 

 mosquitoes), says he, " do not rise high in the air, but are gene- 

 rated and remain near the wot banks of tiie river. I found a tree 

 in the neighbourhood, wliich I ascended nearly to its top with a 

 cord. Tliis I attached firmly to the branches, and then fixed it 

 round me, so that I could not fall, but sit witii safety, although not 

 with much comfort. It was, however, with me here as with many 

 in various situations in life— -I could estimate the nature and ex- 

 tent of my pleasures and my difficulties merely by comparison ; and, 

 certainly, although the being tied to the top of a tree as a sleeping- 

 place was not very agreealile, it was far preferable to being among 

 swarms of hungry mosquitoes where I had previously lodged. I 

 enjoyed several hours' sleep, and awoke considerably refreslied." 

 —Robinson's Journal of an Expedition up the Orinoco and 

 Arauca. 



