As one is seated, he sees several nchounas flying in a quiet way round about him. They are very sly, and the least movement one makes sends them off. As they fly around one they do not appear as if intent upon an attack, but before you know it the fly has come, and in such a gentle way that you do not notice it at all, for they insert their bill very gently into your body. They will stay until they have sucked your blood and filled themselves with it, and generally I never knew of their attack till I felt the itch which follows the bite when the fly has gone. Then this is followed by a little painful swelling. The itching begins, and lasts often for several hours, especially if the fly has been disturbed before its full allowance has been taken. In the height of the rainy season in the country of the Ovenga no day passed without my being bitten several times by the nchouna. The negroes usually have a little broom, made of the stem of the leaves of certain trees, to keep off this insect; often the tail of an elephant is used for the same purpose. The third species, I remember well, is called _ibolai_. It is an insect twice as large as our common house-fly. The wings cross each other. This fly is black, more elongated than the nchouna, and quicker on the wing; its sting is long, and strong enough to pierce the thickest clothes one can wear in the heat of an African summer. The sting is so terribly sharp that I have often jumped up with the sudden pain, which was as if a pin had been stuck savagely into my person; but the bite of this insect, if painful, does not last like that of the nchouna. You need not think for a moment that the day is over with the flies, and that one is going to rest. Toward four o’clock, when the sun begins to go down and lays hidden back of the hills, the iboco, nchouna, and ibolai disappear. The _igooguai_, as I have said before, makes again its appearance to plague and annoy; toward sunset they retire for parts unknown to me, and several varieties of musquitoes make their appearance to remind man that he is made of flesh and blood. In some parts of the country they are very plentiful, and absolutely terrible, but I am happy to say that on the banks of the Ovenga, where the flies I have described to you are very abundant, the musquitoes are not so very numerous. The rainy season is the time when all those flies are most abundant; the dry season is almost free from them, and in many places they then become almost unknown. Such is, I assure you, a faithful picture of the flies of that region. The best way to get rid of them is to keep in motion. If you stand still they are sure to come upon you. You will ask yourselves, How can people live in such a country? It is wonderful how one gets accustomed to snakes, ants, flies, musquitoes, scorpions, and centipedes. To be sure, they are not pleasant companions. [Illustration: [Fleuron]]