330

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

midable and lawless: whereas ' the truth is, they are feeble, insignifi-
cant in size, diffident to a fan It, sensitive'—and so on, and so on; you
would have supposed he was talking about his family. But if he was
soft on the Arkansas mosquitoes, he was hard enough on the mosqui-
toes of Lake Providence to make up for it—' those Lake Providence
colossi,' as he finely called them. He said that two of them could

A BAD EAE.
whip a dog, and that four
of them could hold a man
down; and except help
come, they would kill him
—* butcher him/ as he ex-
pressed it. Referred in a sort
of casual way—and yet signi-
ficant way—to ^(the fact that
the life policy in its simplest
form is unknown in Lake
Providence—they take out a
mosquito policy besides/ He
told many remarkable things
about those lawless insects.
Among others, said he had
seen them try to vote.
Noticing that this statement
seemed to be a good deal of
a strain on us, he modified it
a little: said he might have
been mistaken, as to that
particular, but knew he had
seen them around the polls
* canvassing.*
There was another passenger—friend of H.'s—who backed up the
harsh evidence against those mosquitoes, and detailed some stirring
advBaitures which he had had with them. The stories were pretty
sizable, merely pretty sizable; yet Mr. H. was continually interrupt-
ing with a cold, inexorable * Wait—knock off twenty-five per cent, of
ihat; now go on ; * or, * Wait—you are getting that too strong; cut
it down, cut it down,—you getaleefetoo much costumery onto your