It is important in this world to know to whom one is attractive. There was once a particularly touching advertisement for mosquito repellent that began, "One person in two thousand is naturally unattractive to mosquitoes." Alas, sitting on the terrace of the small hotel in Garoua, it was painfully clear that I did not fall into that category. The mosquitoes of that city are determined and vicious, taking time off from relentless procreation only to savage hapless humans. When the doughty female explorer Olive McLeod visited the city just after the turn of the century and had dinner with the German governor, liveried servants placed a domesticated toad at the side of each of the guests to lessen the ravages of the bloodsucking insects.

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