ey are but a feeble
folk. The reason is that in the mountains there is almost no standing
water where they can breed.

On the other hand, the common house-fly is extraordinarily numerous and
persistent--a daily curse, even on top of Smoky. I imagine this is due
to the wet climate, as in Ireland. Minute gnats (the "punkies" or
"no-see-ums" of the North) are also offensively present in trout-fishing
time. And every cabin is alive with fleas. A hundred nights I have
anointed myself with citronella from head to foot, and outsmelt a cheap
barber-shop, to escape their plague. In a tent, and without dogs, one
can be immune.

In most years there are very few chiggers, except on pine ridges. They
are worse along rivers than in the mountains. The ticks of this country
are not numerous, and seldom fasten on man.

The climate of the Carolina mountains is pleasantly cool in summer. Even
at low altitudes (1,600 to 2,000 feet) the nights generally are
refreshing. It may be hot in the sun, but always cool in the shade. The
air is drier (less relative humidity) than in the lowlands,
notwithstanding that there is greater rainfall here than elsewhere in
the United States outside of Florida and the Puget Sound country. The
annual rainfall varies a great deal according to locality, being least
at Asheville (42 inches) and greatest on the southeastern slope of the
Blue Ridge, where as much as 105 inches has been recorded in a year. The
average rainfall of the whole region is 73 inches a year.[2]

In general the mornings are apt to be lowery, with fogs hanging low
until, say, 9 o'clock, so that one cannot predict weather for the day.
Heavy dews remain on the bushes until about the same hour.

The winters are short. What Northerners would call cold weather is not
expected until Christmas, and generally it is gone by the end of
February. Snow sometimes falls on the higher mountains by the first of
October, and the last snow may linger there until April (exceptionally
it falls in May). Tornadoes are unknown here, but sometimes a hurricane
will sweep the upper ranges. On April 19, 1900, a blizzard from the
northwest struck the Smokies. In twenty minutes everything was frozen.
At Siler's Meadow seventeen cattle climbed upon each other for warmth
and froze to death in a solid hecatomb. A herdsman who was out at the
time, and narrowly escaped a similar fate, assured me that "that was the
beatenest snowstorm ever I seen." In the valleys there ma