The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1878-09-05
Where Mosquitoes were Thick.

The captain of a steamboat gave st.
Louis reporter the following information
concerning mosquitoes on the upper
Missouri: well, sir, we saw poor cat.
tie rush down into the water and wade
in until everything was covered but
their heads, and then the pests would
light on their heads in swarms, and bite
their noses, and every place they could
in their agony, and closed their eyes and
tossed their heads. If they we're human
they would commit suicide. As it is they
are driven mad. Poor things, they are
nothing but skin and bones; mere skele-
tons, clothed in swollen and liberated
skins. Some of the boys killed few of
them, but they were not fit to bring on
board. Same way with all the animals
Antelope and deer we're reduced to moth
ing but skeletons by the vampires. If
you held your hand out for quarter of
a minute, it would be covered so thick
with mosquitoes that it would look like
you had glove Oh. The suffering of
the men was awful. I'll tell yoti how
we were able to get through. 1 took
down my stove-pipes and kept smoky
fires burning all the time, I had to have
two small hand-furnaces making smoke
in the pilot-house all the time, 80 that
the pilots could work. The men were
all broke up. Every limb was swelled
up, and you could not have recognized
the features of your own brother. The
smoke was the ouly protection, and it
was pretty near as bad as the mosGui-
toes. The eyes of all the men were blood
shot. Life was misery.
"The mosquito latitude begins about
seventy-five miles below Bismarck, and is
good for seventy-fv above that point.
There never was season like this one
before. For the first time in many
years they had up there what you would
call an open winter. There was no ice
or snow. At Fort Benton, and just
look at your map and you will find it
about forty.seven degrees latitude, and
that's pretty far north, they didn't put up
a ton of ice. About the first of March
the rainy season set in. There has not
been twelve good days since. I will
venture to say, and mind you know all
about that country, more rain has fallen
in that latitude this year than in the fif-
teen years previous. Vegetation is rank
and tropical in its luxuriance. Weeds
of unusually ordinary growth are higher
than a mans head, and from the water
mosquitoes are bread by the million. If
you publish what I have been telling
you about the pests, some people will
laugh and call it exaggeration. Young
man couldn't begin to give you an idea
of their numbers. They fly in clouds.
They obstruct the light of the sun. They
are ravenous. They are as bad in the
day as in the night. They drive man
almost crazy. Just think of preferring
to sit in binding and sitting smoke
rather than venture outside where the
mosquitoes would get at them. Rather
would promenade twenty hours day
through the yellow fever district of New
Orleans than 60 through the experience
with mosquitoes that 1 had this summer.
1t is awful. can give you no idea of
the nuisance, the torture" And the
captain aimed a vicious blow at sleepy
fly and walked vigorously around to
shake off the memory of this upper Mis-
souri, mosquito misery.