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Updated: June 18, 2025
On the other hand, various kinds of piums were a little too abundant; they vary from things like small gnats to things like black flies. The small stingless bees have no fear and can hardly be frightened away when they light on the hands or face; but they never bite, and merely cause a slight tickling as they crawl over the skin.
The good doctor, to whose unwearied care and kindness I owe much, had cut it open and inserted a drainage tube; an added charm being given the operation, and the subsequent dressings, by the enthusiasm with which the piums and boroshudas took part therein. I could hardly hobble, and was pretty well laid up. But "there aren't no 'stop, conductor, while a battery's changing ground."
However, a couple of marches before we reached Tres Burity, where there is a big ranch with hundreds of cattle, we were met by ten fresh pack-oxen, and our serious difficulties were over. There were piums in plenty by day, but neither mosquitoes nor sand-flies by night; and for us the trip was very pleasant, save for moments of anxiety about the mules.
For much of the time on this trip they lived on wild fruit, and the two dogs that remained alive would wait eagerly under the trees and eat the fruit that was shaken down. In the late afternoon the piums were rather bad at this camp, but we had gloves and head-nets, and were not bothered; and although there were some mosquitoes we slept well under our mosquito-nets.
On the morning of the 29th we were rather late in starting, because the rain had continued through the night into the morning, drenching everything. After nightfall there had been some mosquitoes, and the piums were a pest during daylight; where one bites it leaves a tiny black spot on the skin which lasts for several weeks.
"Flounderin' round in mud soup, bit to death by skeeters and them what-ye-call-'em flies piums sweatin' yerself bone dry and totin' forty thousand pounds, on yer back, not to mention hardware slung all over ye this ain't no place for a minister's son or a fat guy, I'll tell the world. And this is only the start!" A call from Pedro forestalled any answer.
Large birds, like the curassow, and also monkeys, were shot for food. The pest of stinging insects grew constantly worse, bees, mosquitoes, large blood-sucking flies and enormous ants tormented them. The flies were called piums and borashudas. Some of them bit like scorpions. Kermit Roosevelt's canoe was caught in the rapids, smashed and sunk, and one of the men drowned.
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