258 TIMEHRI. 
whole party, constituted and loaded as it was, to cross 4 
without a boat was impossible in the deep still part of 
the river above the rapids, and seemed almost equally __ 
impossible where the river surged down these rapids, 
The delay necessitated by the cleaning, cooking and 
packing—by eating—of the deer was a not unwelcome ~ 
opportunity for considering the position and for a couple | 
of my coast Redmen, excellent swimmers, to swim up 
the river in search of the missing boat. 
The sandy, scantily wooded banks of the Ireng river, 
especially at this part of its course, are infested, toadegree | 
which can only be conceived after experience, by clouds of 
a minute fly, locally called “ lunke,’’ each bite of which 4 3 
causes an immediate irritation of the skin worse than that 
of any mosquito and raises a small circular black blister. 
For this reason the very scantily clothed Redmen keep 
away from the rivers as much as possible; and when, 
as on the present occasion, they are obliged to remain 
near one for a time how they keep their tempers under 
the attacks of the myriads of these venomous little beasts 
on their almost completely exposed skins had always 
been a source of wonder to me. That couple of hours of 
enforced delay while we eat our deer meat was largely 
occupied by me in frantic attempts to ward off these 
inse&t attacks from my face and hands, my only vulner- 
able points, and in noting how soon it became almost 
impossible to deteét an unblistered inch of skin on the 
considerable skin surface presented by my half hundred 
companions—and this despite much use of tobacco and 
of great volumes of wood-smoke raised by making large 
fires of damp wood, and despite constant rushes to and 
plunges in and out of the river. Pitying my mates as I 
