517 



Indians whose bodies are plastered with no 

 colour. The sting of the insect causes no swell- 

 ing in either; and scarcely ever produces those 

 little pustules, which occasion such smarting and 

 itching to Europeans recently disembarked. 

 But the Native and the White suffer equally 

 from the sting, till the insect has withdrawn it's 

 sucker from the skin. After a thousand useless 

 essays, Mr. Bonpland and myself tried the ex- 

 pedient of rubbing our hands and arms with 

 the fat of the crocodile, and the oil of turtles' 

 eggs ; but we never felt the least relief, and 

 were stung as before. I am not ignorant, that 

 the Laplanders boast of oil and fat as the most 

 useful preservatives ; but the insects of Scandi- 

 navia are not of the same species as those of the 

 Oroonoko. The smoke of tobacco drives away 

 our gnats, while it is employed in vain against 

 the zancudoes. If the application of fat and as- 

 tringent * substances preserved the unhappy in- 

 habitants of these countries from the torment of 

 insects, as Father Gum ill a pretends, why has 

 not the custom of painting the skin become 

 general on these very banks ? Why do so many 

 naked ^ natives paint only the face, though liv- 



* The pulp of the anotta, and even the chiea, are astringent 

 and slightly purgative. 



f The Guaypunaves, the C^veres, the Guahibes. 



