62 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



eluding it with a pull at the rum -flask, and then 

 clambered into our hammocks ; the Mexicans stretched 

 themselves on the ground with their heads upon the 

 saddles of the mules, and both masters and men were 

 soon asleep. 



It was somewhere about midnight when I was 

 awakened by an indescribable sensation of oppression 

 from the surrounding atmosphere. The air seemed 

 to be no longer air, but some poisonous exhalation 

 that had suddenly arisen and enveloped us. From 

 the rear of the ravine in which we lay, billows of 

 dark mephitic mist were rolling forward, surrounding 

 us with their baleful influence. It was the vomito 

 prieto, the fever itself, embodied in the shape of a 

 fog. At the same moment, and while I was gasping 

 for breath, a sort of cloud seemed to settle upon me, 

 and a thousand stings, like red-hot needles, were run 

 into my hands, face, neck into every part of my 

 limbs and body that was not triply guarded by 

 clothing. I instinctively stretched forth my hands 

 and closed them, clutching by the action hundreds of 

 enormous mosquitoes, whose droning, singing noise 

 now almost deafened me. The air was literally 

 filled by a dense swarm of these insects; and the 

 agony caused by their repeated and venomous stings 

 was indescribable. It was a perfect plague of 

 Egypt. 



Rowley, whose hammock was slung some ten yards 

 from mine, soon gave tongue : I heard him kicking 



