The Argosy — page 47: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Letters from Majorca. 37 ness to fight against. Nothing less than inveterate and tormenting mosquitoes. But they did not affect me half as much as they did H.C. I had paid my tribute to them elsewhere: in Italy, and especially in Sicily. At Catania they half killed me, and I arrived at Palermo one fine night with a countenance all hills, valleys and inequalities. What little life the mosquitoes had left expired the next morning when I beheld myself in the glass. To-night these Manacor mosquitoes seemed to look upon me as an old acquaintance, and directed their attack chiefly upon H. C. It was his first introduction to the scourge, for in Palma and Miramar we had not found them ; here they were in great force. Oh, that horrible hum and buzz, just as you are falling into unconsciousness ! It wakes you with a start and an earnestness and — ji ape 4 oa so, adi fe ‘oa hee 7h %- MALLORCAN WASHING WELL. a horror which put any further attempt at sleep to flight for hours afterwards. So was it now. And then, when daylight began to glimmer, and there seemed a prospect of an hour or two’s repose, out clashed the bells of the church, with the intention of waking up not only the town, but all the country round. It was the most horrible and discordant din you can imagine. Nota Bacchanalian, but a Clerical Pandemonium—f this is not a con- tradiction in terms. And, of course, those accustomed to the sound slumbered on, whilst, in our case, it finally banished sleep. In a fit of exasperation, I believe, if we could, we should have dynamited that tower. Forbearance, after all, has its limits: very decided limits at five o’clock in the morning after a night of torment. I agree witb Bismarck that there are times of irritability when to slam a a comicbooks.com