vellers have dilated largely upon
the magnificent fruits, flowers, and foliage of tropical forests. One
who has never visited these southern climes is disposed to indulge in
very fanciful dreams of enjoyment there. Life would seem to be
luxurious; every scene appears to be _couleur de rose_.

But Nature has not designed that any portion of her territory should be
favoured beyond the rest to such an extreme degree; and, perhaps, if a
just comparison were instituted, it would be found that the Esquimaux,
shivering in his hut of snow, enjoys as much personal happiness as the
swarth southerner, who swings in his hammock under the shade of a banyan
or a palm-tree.

The clime of the torrid zone, with its luxuriant vegetation, is also
prolific of insect and reptile life; and, from this very circumstance,
the denizen of a hot country is often subject to a greater amount of
personal discomfort than the dweller in the Arctic zone. Even the
scarcity of vegetable food, and the bitter, biting frost, are far easier
to endure than the plague of tipulary insects and reptiles, which swarm
between Cancer and Capricorn.

It is a well-known fact, that there are large districts in tropical
America where human life is scarce endurable, on account of the
mosquitos, gnats, ants, and other insects.

Thus writes the great Prussian geognosist:--

"Persons who have not navigated the rivers of equinoctial America can
scarcely conceive how, at every instant, without intermission, you may
be tormented by insects flying in the air, and how the multitudes 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 the Orinoco, in the villages on the banks of the
river, surrounded by immense forests, the _plaga de las moscas_, or
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 t