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In this country the gnats are sometimes seen to migrate in clouds, like the musketoes of warmer climates, and our swarms of bees frequently travel many miles, and are said in North America always to fly towards the south.
Although it were Winter, yet we found such Swarms of Musketoes, and other troblesome Insects, that we got but little Rest that Night.
Having given my horse the remainder of the corn, I made my bed as formerly; but the musketoes and flies from the pool prevented sleep for some time, and I was twice disturbed in the night by wild beasts, which came very near, and whose howlings kept the horse in continual terror. July 4th.
In warm weather, especially in the spring, the slaves keep up a smoke, or fire and smoke, all night, to drive away the gnats and musketoes, which are very troublesome in all the low country of the south; so much so that the whites sleep under frames with nets over them, knit so fine that the musketoes cannot fly through them.
In South Carolina musketoes swarm in myriads, more than half the year they are so excessively annoying at night, that no family thinks of sleeping without nets or "musketoe-bars" hung over their bedsteads, yet slaves are never provided with them, unless it be the favorite old domestics who get the cast-off pavilions; and yet these very masters and mistresses will be so kind to their horses as to provide them with fly nets.
The thoughts of seeing the Niger in the morning, and the troublesome buzzing of musketoes, prevented me from shutting my eyes during the night; and I had saddled my horse and was in readiness before daylight; but, on account of the wild beasts, we were obliged to wait until the people were stirring, and the gates opened.
O Misery to the full! to see the aged sire beating off the swarms of gnats and musketoes in the warm weather, and shivering in the straw, or bending over a few coals in the winter, clothed in rags. I should think males and females, both lie down at night with their working clothes on them.
This cloak had been of great use to me; it served to cover me from the rains in the day, and to protect me from the musketoes in the night: I therefore earnestly begged him to return it, and followed him some little way to obtain it; but without paying any attention to my request, he and one of his companions rode off with their prize.
Millions of pestiferous gnats, called Musketoes, are hatched during the summer, and swarm over the country in such numbers, that, during the day, it requires no small trouble for the inhabitants to defend themselves in every quarter against them; and, during the night, gause pavilions are necessarily used, to exclude them from their beds, without which it is impossible to enjoy undisturbed repose.
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