ds us, and makes his poisoned mark
upon our skin. But after all, he has his good qualities. The mosquito is
a gentlemanly pirate. He carries his weapon openly, and gives notice of
an attack. He respects the decencies of life, and does not strike below
the belt, or creep down the back of your neck. But the black fly is
at the bottom of the moral scale. He is an unmitigated ruffian, the
plug-ugly of the woods. He looks like a tiny, immature house-fly, with
white legs as if he must be innocent. But, in fact, he crawls like a
serpent and bites like a dog. No portion of the human frame is sacred
from his greed. He takes his pound of flesh anywhere, and does not
scruple to take the blood with it. As a rule you can defend yourself,
to some degree, against him, by wearing a head-net, tying your sleeves
around your wrists and your trousers around your ankles, and anointing
yourself with grease, flavoured with pennyroyal, for which cleanly and
honest scent he has a coarse aversion. But sometimes, especially on
burned land, about the middle of a warm afternoon, when a rain is
threatening, the horde of black flies descend in force and fury knowing
that their time is short. Then there is no escape. Suits of chain
armour, Nubian ointments of far-smelling potency, would not save you.
You must do as our guides did on the portage, submit to fate and
walk along in heroic silence, like Marco Bozzaris "bleeding at every
pore,"--or do as Damon and I did, break into ejaculations and a run,
until you reach a place where you can light a smudge and hold your head
over it.

"And yet," said my comrade, as we sat coughing and rubbing our eyes in
the painful shelter of the smoke, "there are worse trials than this in
the civilised districts: social enmities, and newspaper scandals, and
religious persecutions. The blackest fly I ever saw is the Reverend
-----" but here his voice was fortunately choked by a fit of coughing.

A couple of wandering Indians--descendants of the Montagnais, on whose
hunting domain we were travelling--dropped in at our camp that night as
we sat around the fire. They gave us the latest news about the portages
on our further journey; how far they had been blocked with fallen trees,
and whether the water was high or low in the rivers--just as a visitor
at home would talk about the effect of the strikes on the stock market,
and the prospects of the newest organization of the non-voting classes
for the overthrow of Tammany Hall