In The
Twilight, We Now And Then, To Support Ourselves, Snatched At The
Touch-Me-Not Stem Of Some Ancient Sweet-Brier.
Shaw, who was in
advance, suddenly uttered a somewhat emphatic monosyllable; and
looking up I saw him with one
Hand grasping a sapling, and one foot
immersed in the water, from which he had forgotten to withdraw it,
his whole attention being engaged in contemplating the movements of a
water-snake, about five feet long, curiously checkered with black and
green, who was deliberately swimming across the pool. There being no
stick or stone at hand to pelt him with, we looked at him for a time
in silent disgust; and then pushed forward. Our perseverence was at
last rewarded; for several rods farther on, we emerged upon a little
level grassy nook among the brushwood, and by an extraordinary
dispensation of fortune, the weeds and floating sticks, which
elsewhere covered the pool, seemed to have drawn apart, and left a
few yards of clear water just in front of this favored spot. We
sounded it with a stick; it was four feet deep; we lifted a specimen
in our cupped hands; it seemed reasonably transparent, so we decided
that the time for action was arrived. But our ablutions were
suddenly interrupted by ten thousand punctures, like poisoned
needles, and the humming of myriads of over-grown mosquitoes, rising
in all directions from their native mud and slime and swarming to the
feast. We were fain to beat a retreat with all possible speed.
We made toward the tents, much refreshed by the bath which the heat
of the weather, joined to our prejudices, had rendered very
desirable.
"What's the matter with the captain? look at him!" said Shaw. The
captain stood alone on the prairie, swinging his hat violently around
his head, and lifting first one foot and then the other, without
moving from the spot. First he looked down to the ground with an air
of supreme abhorrence; then he gazed upward with a perplexed and
indignant countenance, as if trying to trace the flight of an unseen
enemy. We called to know what was the matter; but he replied only by
execrations directed against some unknown object. We approached,
when our ears were saluted by a droning sound, as if twenty bee-hives
had been overturned at once. The air above was full of large black
insects, in a state of great commotion, and multitudes were flying
about just above the tops of the grass blades.
"Don't be afraid," called the captain, observing us recoil. "The
brutes won't sting."
At this I knocked one down with my hat, and discovered him to be no
other than a "dorbug"; and looking closer, we found the ground
thickly perforated with their holes.
We took a hasty leave of this flourishing colony, and walking up the
rising ground to the tents, found Delorier's fire still glowing
brightly. We sat down around it, and Shaw began to expatiate on the
admirable facilities for bathing that we had discovered, and
recommended the captain by all means to go down there before
breakfast in the morning.
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