"One gentleman told me how he was once bitten by one of these spiders on the calf of the leg. He immediately cut out the wound and injected some ammonia close by the side of it, but in spite of these precautions he suffered intense pains in the leg for several days. The limb swelled to twice its natural size, and became as soft as putty. At the spot where the wound was a suppurating sore formed and it discharged for several months. He fully expected that amputation would be necessary, and the doctor whom he called to attend him said the chances were five to one that he would lose the leg altogether. Greatly to his and the doctor's surprise and delight, he managed to save it, but for fully a year after the wound had healed the limb did not resume its normal size, and he suffered frequent pains like rheumatism.
"'You will naturally conclude,' said our friend, 'that as we have spiders here we ought to have flies, and we have them in sufficient abundance to prevent life from becoming monotonous. They are worse in the interior than on the coast; in the latter region they are only troublesome during the autumn months, while for the rest of the year they are not at all numerous, or may be absent altogether; but in the interior they are always bad, the only difference being that they are worse at some times than at others. In parts of the interior everybody wears a veil when going about the country, and it is often necessary to do so while in the house. On some of the interior plains you can see a man before you see him, as an Irishman might put it. You see in the distance a small black cloud hovering just over the road. It is a cloud of flies around the head of some unfortunate traveler, who is approaching on horseback. They stick to him like a troubled conscience and go with him wherever he goes. If another traveler happens to be going in the opposite direction, the clouds about their heads mingle as the individuals meet, and when they separate the flies move on with them, as before.'
"Flies in the houses are very troublesome, as they are fond of loitering about the table, just like flies in America and other countries. They are a nuisance to which nobody ever gets accustomed, and in some localities they almost render the country uninhabitable. Mosquitoes abound in most parts of the country, especially along the rivers and lakes and in swampy regions, and every traveler who expects to be out at night carries a mosquito net with him."