62 



MOSQUITOES. 



blossom, where, but a short time ago, every 

 thing bore the aspect of winter. But this 

 almost sudden and pleasing change has brought 

 an unceasing torment : night and day we are 

 perpetually persecuted with the mosquitoes, 

 that swarm around us, and afford no rest but 

 in the annoying respiration of a smoky room. 

 They hover in clouds about the domestic 

 cattle, and drive them (almost irritated to 

 madness) to the smoke of fires lighted with 

 tufts of grass for their relief. The trial of this 

 ever busy and tormenting insect is inconceiv- 

 able, but to those who have endured it. We 

 retire to rest, enveloped in clothes almost to 

 suffocation, but the musquitoe finds its way 

 under the blankets, piercing with its enven- 

 omed trunk, till we often rise in a fever. Nor 

 are we relieved from this painful scourge until 

 the return of a slight frost, in the beginning 

 of September. 



20th. The weather is extremely hot, the 

 thermometer more than 90° above zero. Ve- 

 getation is making an astonishingly rapid 

 progress, and the grain in its luxuriant growth 

 upon a rich soil, presents to the eye the fairest 

 prospects of a good harvest. But the locust, 

 an insect very like the large grasshopper, is 

 beginning to make sad ravages, by destroying 



