Persons Who Have Not Navigated The Great Rivers Of Equinoctial America, For Instance, The Orinoco And The Magdalena, Can Scarcely Conceive How, At Every Instant, Without Intermission, You May Be Tormented By Insects Flying In The Air; And How The Multitude Of These Little Animals May Render Vast Regions Almost Uninhabitable.

Whatever fortitude be exercised to endure pain without complaint, whatever interest may be felt in the objects of scientific

Research, it is impossible not to be constantly disturbed by the mosquitos, zancudos, jejens, and tempraneros, that cover the face and hands, pierce the clothes with their long needle-formed suckers, and getting into the mouth and nostrils, occasion coughing and sneezing whenever any attempt is made to speak in the open air. In the missions of the Orinoco, in the villages on the banks of the river, surrounded by immense forests, the plaga de las moscas, or the plague of the mosquitos, affords an inexhaustible subject of conversation. When two persons meet in the morning, the first questions they address to each other are: How did you find the zancudos during the night? How are we to-day for the mosquitos?* (* Que le han parecido los zancudos de noche? Como stamos hoy de mosquitos?) These questions remind us of a Chinese form of politeness, which indicates the ancient state of the country where it took birth. Salutations were made heretofore in the Celestial empire in the following words, vou-to-hou, Have you been incommoded in the night by the serpents?

Enter page number Go  Previous Next
Page 410 of 777
Words from 111011 to 111262 of 211397