ds meet, but none can stay;--(_Fawkes_.)

To sport their season, and be seen no more,--(_Cowper_.)

Till tired they sleep, and life's poor play is o'er.--(_Pope_.)

CHAPTER X.

ADVENTURES IN MOSQUITO-LAND.

At the close of the school in July, 1870, a friend of mine, Doctor
B----, of Boston, and I, attracted by the alluring prospectus of a
new town near Plymouth, North Carolina, visited that place via the
Merchant's and Miner's steamship line.

I wrote an account of this pleasure excursion, which was widely copied
by northern newspapers in which I figured as the professor and he as
the doctor, while both of us combined were called the "Shoo-Fly
Club." I quote some extracts from the description of this remarkable
excursion.

"On the early morning after our arrival in the Southland, doctor and
professor, after a brief sojourn in the arms of Morpheus, awoke to a
contest which was enough to daunt the stoutest heart.

"Mosquitoes to the right of them, mosquitoes to the left of them,
black flies above them, black flies beneath them, buzzed and stabbed
with a vengeance. We lay under our netting appalled at the profanity
and ferocity of our foes, caught in a trap from which there seemed
to be no escape. The breakfast-bell rang and rang, but we dared not
venture out among our bloodthirsty foes, for an array of bristling
bayonets was thrust through the bars long enough to hang our clothes
on, and fierce enough to suck every drop of blood from our trembling
limbs, and our only consolation was that our invariable diet of 'hog
and hominy' had so reduced the vital fluid, that our tormentors would
starve though we were slain.

"At length a brilliant thought flashed across the mind of the doctor.
'The shoo-fly--the shoo-fly,' said he; 'why didn't we think of that?
and out he went for his carpetbag, pulled out some suspicious looking
bottles labeled with the mystic words, and made for the bed, entirely
covered with a ferocious cloud of the aforesaid 'skeeters' and flies
stabbing him for dear life. We then proceeded to anoint our bodies
with this preparation, which the doctor declared to be a panacea for
all human ills; then completely clad in our armor, we sallied forth
to the crusade. Down came the fiends; they cared not for 'shoo-fly,'
cared not for blows, and our visions of fortunes to be realized from
our new discovery vanished away, but not so our tormentors.

"Regardless of Mrs. Grundy, regardless of everyth