ees
were in such swarms as to be a nuisance. Many small stinging bees were
with them, which stung badly. We were bitten by huge horse-flies, the
size of bumblebees. More serious annoyance was caused by the pium and
boroshuda flies during the hours of daylight, and by the polvora, the
sand-flies, after dark. There were a few mosquitoes. The boroshudas
were the worst pests; they brought the blood at once, and left marks
that lasted for weeks. I did my writing in head-net and gauntlets.
Fortunately we had with us several bottles of "fly dope"--so named on
the label--put up, with the rest of our medicine, by Doctor Alexander
Lambert; he had tested it in the north woods and found it excellent. I
had never before been forced to use such an ointment, and had been
reluctant to take it with me; but now I was glad enough to have it,
and we all of us found it exceedingly useful. I would never again go
into mosquito or sand-fly country without it. The effect of an
application wears off after half an hour or so, and under many
conditions, as when one is perspiring freely, it is of no use; but
there are times when minute mosquitoes and gnats get through head-nets
and under mosquito-bars, and when the ointments occasionally renewed
may permit one to get sleep or rest which would otherwise be
impossible of attainment. The termites got into our tent on the sand-
flat, ate holes in Cherrie's mosquito-net and poncho, and were
starting to work at our duffel-bags, when we discovered them.

Packing the loads across was simple. Dragging the heavy dugouts was
labor. The biggest of the two water-logged ones was the heaviest. Lyra
and Kermit did the job. All the men were employed at it except the
cook, and one man who was down with fever. A road was chopped through
the forest and a couple of hundred stout six-foot poles, or small
logs, were cut as rollers and placed about two yards apart. With block
and tackle the seven dugouts were hoisted out of the river up the
steep banks, and up the rise of ground until the level was reached.
Then the men harnessed themselves two by two on the drag-rope, while
one of their number pried behind with a lever, and the canoe, bumping
and sliding, was twitched through the woods. Over the sandstone flats
there were some ugly ledges, but on the whole the course was down-hill
and relatively easy. Looking at the way the work was done, at the
good-will, the endurance, and the bull-like strength of the camaradas,
and