pEc.1770 ILLNESS OF BANKS AND SOLANDER 375 
told us that it did not commonly shift so suddenly, and 
were loth to believe that the westerly winds were really set 
in for several days after. 
Dr. Solander had recovered enough to be able to walk 
about the house, but gathered strength very slowly. I 
myself was given to understand that curing my ague was of 
very little consequence while the cause remained in the 
badness of the air. The physician, however, bled me, and 
gave me frequent gentle purges, which he told me would 
make the attacks less violent, as was really the case. They 
came generally about two or three in the afternoon, a time 
when everybody in these climates is always asleep, and by 
four or five I had generally recovered sufficiently to get up 
and walk in the garden. The rainy season had now set in, 
and we had generally some rain in the night; the days were 
more or less cloudy, and sometimes wet; this, however, was 
not always the case, for we once had a whole week of very 
clear weather. 
The frogs in the ditches, whose voices were ten times 
louder than those of European ones, made a noise almost in- 
tolerable on nights when rain was to be expected; and the 
mosquitos or gnats, who had been sufficiently troublesome 
even in the dry time, were now breeding in every splash of 
water, and became innumerable, especially in the moonlight 
nights. Their stings, however, though painful and trouble- 
some enough at the time, never continued to itch above half 
an hour; so that no man in the daytime was troubled with 
the bites of the night before. Indeed, I never met with any 
whose bites caused swellings remaining twenty-four hours, 
except the midges or gnats of Lincolnshire (which are 
identically the same insect as is called mosquito in most 
parts of the world) and the sand flies of North America.’ 
1st December. About this time Dr. Solander had a return 
of his fever, which increased gradually for four or five days, 
when he became once more in imminent danger. 
7th. We received the agreeable news of the ship’s arrival 
in the road, having completed all her rigging, etc., and having 
1 Alluding to his experience in Newfoundland in 1766. 
