Persons who have not navigated the great rivers of equinoctial
America, for instance, the Orinoco and the Magdalena, can scarcely
conceive how, at every instant, without intermission, you may be
tormented by insects flying in the air, and how the multitude of
these little animals may render vast regions almost uninhabitable.
Whatever fortitude be exercised to endure pain without complaint,
whatever interest may be felt in the objects of scientific research,
it is impossible not to be constantly disturbed by the mosquitos,
zancudos, jejens, and tempraneros, that cover the face and hands,
pierce the clothes with their long, needle-formed suckers, and
getting into the mouth and nostrils occasion coughing and sneezing
whenever any attempt is made to speak in the open air. In the
missions of Orinoco, in the villages on the banks of the river,
surrounded by immense forests, the _plaga de las moscas_, or
the plague of the mosquitos, affords an inexhaustible subject
of conversation. When two persons meet in the morning the first
questions they address to each other are: “How did you find the
zancudos during the night? How are we to-day for the mosquitos?”...
“How comfortable must people be in the moon!” said a Salive Indian to
Father Gumilla. “She looks so beautiful and so clear that she must be
free from mosquitos.”...