or the sea-breeze ever blows, the vicious little wretches are
hardly known; on the forested background of mountain they are
troublesome as at Nigerian Nufe. The bite burns severely, and
presently the skin rises in bosses, lasting for days with a
severe itching, which, if unduly resented, may end in
inflammatory ulcerations--I can easily understand a man being
laid up by their attacks. The animalcules act differently upon
different constitutions. While mosquitoes hardly take effect,
sand flies have often blinded me for hours by biting the
circumorbital parts. The numbers and minuteness of this insect
make it formidable. The people flap their naked shoulders with
cloths or bushy twigs; Nigerian travellers have tried palm oil
but with scant success, and spirits of wine applied to the skin
somewhat alleviate the itching but has no prophylactic effect.
Sandflies do not venture into the dark huts, and a "smudge" keeps
them aloof, but the disease is more tolerable than the remedy of
inflaming the eyes with acrid smoke and of sitting in a close
box, by courtesy termed a room, when the fine pure air makes one
pine to be beyond walls. After long endurance in hopes of
becoming inoculated with the virus, I was compelled to defend
myself with thick gloves, stockings and a muslin veil made fast
to the hat and tucked in under the shirt. After sunset the
sandflies retire, and the mosquito sounds her hideous trump; as
has been said, however, Pongo-land knows how to receive her.





Chapter VII.