S8 RIO DE JANEIRO. 
ing to dart against our faces ; if we remained in the house, 
scorpions, and centipedes, and scolopendras were constantly 
craAvhng over the floor ; and a disagreeable, disgusting, but 
perfectly harmless insect, a species of cricket {Grijllus Gryl- 
lotalpa)^ as constantly skipped about the plates and into the 
glasses during supper. But of all the torments I ever ex- 
perienced, in any part of the world, none in my opinion can 
be put in comparison with those produced by the stings of the 
musquitoes of Rio de Janeiro. I have felt the venom of 
their little pointed beaks in many parts of the world, but 
never suffered from its virulence any thing like the degree of 
pain -sdiich their puncture occasioned at this place ; nor could 
the exquisite torment which we suffered be owing to any 
extraordinary degree of irritability in the habit of body at the 
time, because the whole party, without a single exception, 
laboured under the same severity of pain. The eyes, the lips, 
the forehead, and the cheeks of every individual who slept 
on shore were inflamed and swollen in such a manner as com- 
pletely to disfigure the face. Those who had taken the pre- 
caution to furnish themselves with curtains of net-work, 
though they might not suffer in an equal degree with the 
rest, Avere not, however, entirely protected. If a single mus- 
quito, by any accident, found itself within the net, the per- 
petual humming noise with which it assailed the face, and the 
constant expectation of feeling its sting, Avere nearly as teas- 
ing and as preventive of sleep to those who lay enclosed in 
net-work as to those Avho were exposed to their open attack. 
The sAvarms of these insects and other kinds of vermin may 
be attributed rather to the extreme filthiness of the people 
