the water, and have no houses but ships. The cabin is now a favourite
breeding-place for mosquitoes, and we have to support both the ship-bred
and shore-bred bloodsuckers, of which several species show us their
irritating attentions. A large brown sort, called by the Portuguese
_mansos_ (tame), flies straight to its victim, and goes to work at once,
as though it were an invited guest. Some of the small kinds carry
uncommonly sharp lancets, and very potent poison. "What would these
insects eat, if we did not pass this way?" becomes a natural question.

The juices of plants, and decaying vegetable matter in the mud, probably
form the natural food of mosquitoes, and blood is not necessary for their
existence. They appear so commonly at malarious spots, that their
presence may be taken as a hint to man to be off to more healthy
localities. None appear on the high lands. On the low lands they swarm
in myriads. The females alone are furnished with the biting apparatus,
and their number appears to be out of all proportion in excess of the
males. At anchor, on a still evening, they were excessively annoying;
and the sooner we took refuge under our mosquito curtains, the better.
The miserable and sleepless night that only one mosquito inside the
curtain can cause, is so well known, and has been so often described,
that it is needless to describe it here. One soon learns, from
experience, that to beat out the curtains thoroughly before entering
them, so that not one of these pests can possibly be harboured within, is
the only safeguard against such severe trials to one's tranquillity and
temper.

A few miles above Mboma we came again to the village (16 degrees 44
minutes 30 seconds S.) of the chief Tingane, the beat of whose war-drums
can speedily muster some hundreds of armed men. The bows and poisoned
arrows here are of superior workmanship to those below. Mariano's slave-