SUFFERING FROM MOSCHETOES. 307 



undertake it with my own resources, are exaggerated 

 and untrue. Being on the ground at the commencement 

 of the dry season, with eight or ten young " pioneers," 

 having a spirit of enterprise equal to their bone and 

 muscle, in less than six months the whole of these ruins 

 could be laid bare. Any man who has ever " cleared" 

 a hundred acres of land is competent to undertake it, 

 and the time and money spent by one of our young 

 men in a " winter in Paris" would determine beyond all 

 peradventure whether the city ever did cover the im- 

 mense extent which some have supposed. 



But to return : Under the escort of our guide we had 

 a fatiguing but most interesting day. What we saw 

 does not need any exaggeration. It awakened admira- 

 tion and astonishment. In the afternoon came on the 

 regular storm. We had distributed our beds, however, 

 along the corridors, under cover of the outer wall, and 

 were better protected, but suffered terribly from moscheT 

 toes, the noise and stings of which drove away sleep. In 

 the middle of the night I took up my mat to escape 

 from these murderers of rest. The rain had ceased, and 

 the moon, breaking through the heavy clouds, with a 

 misty face lighted up the ruined corridor. I climbed 

 over a mound of stones at one . end, where the wall had 

 fallen, and, stumbling along outside the palace, entered 

 a lateral building near the foot of the tower, groped in 

 the dark along a low damp passage, and spread my 

 mat before a low doorway at the extreme end. Bats 

 were flying and whizzing through the passage, noisy and 

 sinister ; but the ugly creatures drove away mosche- 

 toes. The dampness of the passage was cooling and 

 refreshing ; and, with some twinging apprehensions of 

 the snakes and reptiles, lizards and scorpions, which in- 

 fest the ruins, I fell asleep. 



