144 GUN, ROD, AND SADDLE. 



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

 your sliirt sleeves or collar, everywhere he will get 

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

 lanxes apparently undiminished 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 

 clun^: to her : and, but that we lit a laro-e smudo;e* 

 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, w^oree 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. 



