_August 4th._--Beautiful day again. Every pleasure in this life has some drawback--as if this were necessary to prevent our thinking we have already arrived in paradise. That, then, which in a measure neutralises our enjoyment of this fine warm weather, is the incessant torment of swarms of flies (common house-flies) which infest us within and without doors. From these wretches there is no respite, except it be at night, or maybe in a darkened room. The mosquitoes cannot be worse, though they may be as bad. It is not as in England--merely the buzzing about and tickling caused by their alighting on and walking about one. No; here the brutes bite, and so sharply as to bring blood. My greatest suffering from these plagues is in the morning, when I may wish to lie in bed later than usual, which is not often. I am generally up too early for them;[23] for it is only after the sun acquires strength that they begin to be troublesome: then, unless the room be well darkened, there is no possibility of sleeping; and in my naked house there are not the means of doing this--window-shutters, to be sure, but they fit so badly that there is little difference as to light whether they be closed or open. In the village the road is quite black every day in front of our butchers with the dead flies thrown out. He poisons them with an infusion of quassia sweetened with sugar. In my garden there is abundance of the finest fruit--peaches, nectarines, figs, plums, and splendid grapes, now all quite ripe; but such swarms of these detestable brutes infest the trees that they spoil everything. It is impossible to eat any of the fruit without first washing it: this spoils it. Half the battle is picking it off the tree and eating it.