the rain brought no coolness, and for the greater part of the three
marches between Singtam and Chakoong, we were either wading through
deep mud, or climbing over rocks. Leeches swarmed in incredible
profusion in the streams and damp grass, and among the bushes: they
got into my hair, hung on my eyelids, and crawled up my legs and down
my back. I repeatedly took upwards of a hundred from my legs, where
the small ones used to collect in clusters on the instep: the sores
which they produced were not healed for five months afterwards, and I
retain the scars to the present day. Snuff and tobacco leaves are the
best antidote, but when marching in the rain, it is impossible to
apply this simple remedy to any advantage. The best plan I found to
be rolling the leaves over the feet, inside the stockings, and
powdering the legs with snuf.

Another pest is a small midge, or sand-fly, which causes intolerable
itching, and subsequent irritation, and is in this respect the most
insufferable torment in Sikkim; the minutest rent in one's clothes is
detected by the acute senses of this insatiable bloodsucker, which is
itself so small as to be barely visible without a microscope.
We daily arrived at our camping-ground, streaming with blood, and
mottled with the bites of peepsas, gnats, midges, and mosquitos,
besides being infested with ticks.

As the rains advanced, insects seemed to be called into existence in
countless swarms; large and small moths, cockchafers, glow-worms, and
cockroaches, made my tent a Noah's ark by night, when the candle was
burning; together with winged ants, May-flies, flying earwigs, and
many beetles, while a very large species of _Tipula_
(daddy-long-legs) swept its long legs across my face as I wrote my
journal, or plotted off my map. After retiring to rest and putting