Travels In The United States Of America; Commencing In The Year 1793, And Ending In 1797. With The Author's Journals Of His Two Voyages Across The Atlantic By William Priest
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The Next In Size Are Our _Counter Tenors_; They Have A Note
Resembling The _Setting_ Of A _Saw_.
A still larger species sing _tenor_;
and the _under part_ is supported by the bull-frogs; which are as large as
a man's foot, and _bellow_ out the _bass_ in a tone as loud and sonorous
as that of the animal from which they take their name.
To an Englishman lately arrived in this country there are other phenomena,
equally curious; as _fire-flies, night-hawks &c.;_ but, above all,
such tremendous peals of thunder and flashes of lightning, as can be
conceived only by those who have been in southern latitudes.
I have often thought, if an enthusiastic _cockney_, of weak nerves,
who had never been out of the sound of Bow bell, could suddenly be
conveyed from his bed, in the middle of the night, and laid, fast asleep,
in an american swamp, he would, on waking, fancy himself in the infernal
regions: his first sensation would be from the stings of a myriad of
mosquitoes; waking with the smart, his ears would be assailed with the
horrid noises of the frogs; on lifting up his eyes he would have a faint
view of the night-hawks, flapping their ominous wings over his devoted
head, visible only from the glimmering light of the fire-flies, which he
would naturally conclude were sparks from the bottomless pit. Nothing
would be wanting at this moment to complete the illusion, but one of those
dreadful explosions of thunder and lightning, so _extravagantly_
described by Lee, in Oedipus:
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