TO THE CIMMERIAN BOSPORUS. ' 
distance is thirty-five versts'. Night came on; 
but we determined to proceed. No contrivance 
on our part could prevent millions of mosqui- 
toes from filling the inside of our carriage : 
in spite of gloves, clothes, and handkerchiefs, 
they rendered our bodies one entire wound. 
The excessive irritation and painful swelling 
caused by the stings of these furious insects, 
together with a hot pestilential air, excited a 
considerable degree of fever * 2 . The Cossacks 
light numerous fires to drive them from the 
cattle duirng the night; but so insatiate is their 
thirst of blood, that swarms will attack a person 
attempting to shelter himself even in the midst 
of smoke. The noise they make in flying 
cannot be conceived by persons who have 
only been accustomed to the humming of such 
insects in our country. It was indeed to all of 
us a fearful sound, accompanied by the clamour 
of reptile myriads, toads and bull-frogs, whose 
1 1 ) Rather less than twenty-four English miles. 
(2) The mortality thus occasioned in the Russian army, both of men 
aud horses, was very great. Many of those stationed along the Kuban 
died in consequence of mortification produced by the bites of these 
insects. Others, who escaped the venom of the mosquitoes, fell victims 
*° Oie badness of the air. Sometimes the soldiers scoop a hollow in 
f he antient tombs, to serve as a dwelling : at other times a mere shed, 
instructed of reeds, affords the only covering ; and in either of these 
places, during the greatest heat of summer, they light large fires, in 
°' , der to fill the area with smoke; flying to their suffocating ovens, in 
fhc most sultry weather, to escape the mosquitoes. 
59 
CHAP. 
II. 
< > 
Mosqui- 
toes. 
