STONE CIRCLES. 89 



But we have feasted long enough upon this rare, unique 

 scene. We speak not of the freshness of the breeze, 

 of the exhilaration and inspiration- it brings, and not, 

 least of all, of the perfect freedom from every sign of fly 

 or mosquito. Now, as we return, for two miles of bog- 

 trotting, an hour of black-fly and mosquito fighting ! 

 While sitting upon the hill during that half-hour's rest 

 the breeze kept the flies from our face ; but how secretly 

 and in what untoward numbers had the silvery-legged 

 rascals crept into our flannel shirts, covered hat and back, 

 doing nothing but hold on for the wind ! but now, 

 under lee of this wall, the plagues have the advantage. 

 They fly into our face, eyes, nose, and mouth ; they do 

 not bite hard, like the mosquitoes, but the vampires suck 

 long and deep, leaving great clots of blood. To com- 

 plete the work, half a dozen frightful horse-flies of gigan- 

 tic stature hover about ; now and then, when we are not 

 watching, they will settle down on our hands and bite 

 terribly, making a wound which does not heal for days. 

 It is useless to try to bear it. I make a stampede up 

 the rocks to the breeze, but they follow in clouds, pounc- 

 ing down like small-shot on my wide-awake. So run- 

 ning, as if for my life, one moment, and stopping to rest 

 the next ; now starting up a white-headed finch or soli- 

 tary robin, or stopping to watch a Canadian jay or hun- 

 gry cormorant sailing aloft, or pausing to trace out two 

 or three contiguous circles of bowlder-stones, which 

 marked the former wigwams of the Esquimaux, who used 

 to have bloody fights on this island with the Mountain- 

 eer Indians ; now wading a swamp, or making ditours 

 round miniature ponds, or jumping a narrow ravine, or 

 circumnavigating a growth of tuckermel — I come to a 



