BLOOD^UCEEBS, 



493 



tion at tlie ankles, and found mj stockings red with 

 "blood. Turning tliem down, I found botli ankles 

 perfectly fringed with blood-suckers^ some of which 

 had filled themselves until they seemed ready to 

 bnrat. One had even crawled down to my foot, 

 and made an incision which allowed the blood 

 to pour out through my canvas shoe. All this 

 day we have suffered from these disgusting pests» 

 Oui' horses became quite striped with their own 

 bloodj and a dog that followed us looked as if 

 he had run through a pool of clotted gore before we 

 reached the highway again. Of all the pests I have 

 experienced in the tropics, or in any land, whether 

 mosquitoes, black flies, ants, snakes, or viler vermin, 

 these are the most annoying and disgusting. There 

 is something almost unendm-able in the thought 

 that these slimy worms are lancing you and sucking 

 out youi" life-blood, yet the Eesident informs me that 

 he has travelled many times through the forests in 

 this region when these animals were fai* more numer- 

 ous and tormenting than they have been to-day. 

 Sometimes he has known them to drop from the 

 leaves upon the heads and into the necks of all 

 who chanced to pass that way. 



Hetuming two paals toward the highway, we took 

 a path thi-ough a magnificent forest in a more easter- 

 ly direction, for about the same distance, to Ayar 

 Sumpui', a brook where the coal again appears on its 

 sides and in its bed. The layers seen at Suban were 

 not more than two or three feet thick, but here they 

 are fi'om six to ten. Between this place and Suban 

 coal again outcrops on the banks of the Kamiming. 



