These mosquitoes had been persistently represented as being formidable and lawless; whereas 'the truth is, they are feeble, insignificant in size, diffident to a fault, sensitive'-- and so on, and so on; you would have supposed he was talking about his family.

But if he was soft on the Arkansas mosquitoes, he was hard enough on the mosquitoes of Lake Providence to make up for it--'those Lake Providence colossi,' as he finely called them.

He said that two of them could whip a dog, and that four of them could hold a man down; and except help come, they would kill him--'butcher him,' as he expressed it.

Referred in a sort of casual way--and yet significant way--to 'the fact that the life policy in its simplest form is unknown in Lake Providence--they take out a mosquito policy besides.' He told many remarkable things about those lawless insects.

Among others, said he had seen them try to vote.
Noticing that this statement seemed to be a good deal of a strain on us, he modified it a little: said he might have been mistaken, as to that particular, but knew he had seen them around the polls 'canvassing.' There was another passenger--friend of H.'s--who backed up the harsh evidence against those mosquitoes, and detailed some stirring adventures which he had had with them.