kalm's travels in north America.                           599
?fometimes be attended with very difagreeable circumftances, efpecially when the boat is
fo near a rock, and clofe to that a fudden depth of water ; and fuch places are common
in the lakes and rivers here.
I never faw the mufkitoes (culex pipiens) more plentiful in any part of America
than they are here. They were fo eager for our blood that we could not reft all the
night, though we had furrounded ourfelves with fire.
Wood-lice (acarus Americanus Linn.) abound here, and are more plentiful than
on any part of the journey. Scarcely any one of us fat down but a whole army of
them crept upon his clothes. They caufed us as much inconvenience as the gnats,
during the laft night, and the fhort time we flayed here. Their bite is very difagree-
able, and they would prove very dangerous, if any one of them fhould creep into a
man's ear, from whence it is difficult to extract them. There-are examples of people
whofe ears were fwelled to the fize of the fift, on account of one of thefe infects creep-
ing into them, and biting them.
The whipperiwill, or whip-poor-will, cried all night on every fide. The fire-flies
flew in numbers through the woods at night.
Fort Anne derives its name from Queen Anne ; for in her time it ferved as a fortifi-
cation againft the French. It lies on the weftern fide of the river Woodcreek, which
is here as inconfiderable as a brook, of a fathom's breadth, and may be waded through
in any part, during this feafon. The fort is built in the fame manner as the forts
Saratoga and Nicholfon, that is to fay, of palifades, within- which the foldiers were
quartered, and at the corners of which were the lodgings of the officers. The whole
confifted of wood, becaufe it was erected only with a view to refift irregular troops.
It is built on a little rifing ground which runs obliquely to the river Woodcreek. The
country round about it is partly flat, partly hilly, and partly marfhy, but it confifts
merely of earth, and no ftones are to be met with, though ever fo carefully fought for.
General Nicholfon built this fort in the year 1709 ; but at the conclufion of the war
then carrying on againft the French, it fhared the fame fate with Saratoga* and Fort
Nicholfon, being burnt by the Englifh in 1711. This happened with the following
circumftance: In 1711 the Englifh refolved to attack Canada by land and by fea at
the fame time. A powerful fleet failed up the river St. Lawrence to befiege Quebec,
and General Nicholfon, who was the greateft promoter of this expedition, headed a
numerous army to this place by land, to attack Montreal at the fame time from hence?,
but a great part of the Englifh fleet was fhipwrecked in the river St. Lawrence, and
obliged to return to New England. The news of this misfortune was immediately
communicated to General Nicholfon, who was advifed to retreat. Captain Butler who*
fiommanded Fort Mohawk, during my flay in America, told me, that he had been at
Fort Anne in 1711, and that General Nicholfon was about to leave it, and to go down
the river Woodcreek, in boats ready for that purpofe, when he received the accounts
of the difafter which befell the fleet. He was fo enraged, that he endeavoured to tear-
his wig, but it being too ftrong for him, he flung it to the ground, and trampled on it,,
crying out, Roguery, treachery ! He then fet fire to the fort, and returned. We faw
the remains of the burnt palifades in the ground. And I afked my guides, Why the
Englifh had been at fo great an expence in erecting the fort, and why they afterwards
burnt it without any previous confideration ? They replied, that it was done to get
money from the government once more, for the rebuilding of the fort, which money
coming into fome people's hands, they would appropriate a great part of it to them-
felves, and erect again a wretched, inconfiderable fort.    They further told me, that
fome-