A NIGHT HUNT UP THE C0NGAMTJNCK. 497 



contrary to our expectation, not one showed itself to tempt 

 me, although it was three miles up to where this stream 

 outlets in Elm Lake. 



It was in the last half mile of our approach to this and 

 around its mashy shores, that we looked for the sport of the 

 night to begin in earnest ; and any that might have occurred 

 on the way would have been incidental, and could therefore 

 be well dispensed with for the higher and more placid enjoy- 

 ment of the scene. As we approached the Lake the stream 

 became more shallow, and we were compelled at last to get 

 out and let our guide drag the boat up the ripples. The sun 

 was now setting, and at the first place where the low water 

 thus compelled us to land for a few moments, we were 

 suddenly introduced to that most inconceivable torment, the 

 black gnat ! 



As the shades of evening advance, these gnats, which at 

 first hover near the surface of the water, rise slowly on the 

 strata of miasmatic air. Wishing to examine some object on 

 the sand-bar more closely, I stooped, when instantly, as if an 

 infinitesimal shower of red-hot sand or fine vitriol drops 

 had been dashed into my face and eyes, I felt them — blister- 

 ing against neck and bosom, up sleeves and pants, they at 

 once invested me in a maddening reality of the fabled terrors 

 of the shirt of Nessus ! No imagination is sufficiently vivid 

 to conceive the intensity of that keen-poisoned, stinging 

 nettle-rash with which we found ourselves suddenly assailed 

 by this invisible torturer from Acheron, rising to meet us on 

 its thick, pestilent airs. I did not know what it meant at 

 first, and, blinded with the pain, rushed with the instinct of 

 the cold water man, to plunge my face in the stream for 

 relief. This was, fortunately, the best thing I could have 

 done ; and I now gasped out, " George ! George ! what is 

 it!" "The gnats, air! the gnats — you had better put on 

 your veil !" 



I did 80 as quickly as possible ; and when I turned, there 



