LORD CARNARVON'S DEATH

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 142, 16 June 1923, Page 14

LORD CARNARVON'S DEATH

DUE TO A MOSQUITO BITE.

The statement that the illness from which the Earl of Carnarvon; the discoverer of Tutankhamen's tomb, died was in the beginning caused by the bite of a mosquito lends interest to the following note from an old friend of the late peer, says the " Morning Post."

There is an additional note of tragedy in the sad death of Lsi-d Carnarvon when I read that it was due, in the first instance, to the bite of a mosquito, for he had endeavoured to avoid these pests all his life. There is an excellent hotel, in Paris, in which he > would never set foot, as he had once been bitten there; white in every new place he ever found himself his first visit was to the local chemist to buy something or other " in case there were any mosquitoes about." Somo thirty odd years ago we were on a shoot ing trip in South America, together with the late Prince Victor Dhuleep Singh. One day a wealthy estanciero invited us to his ranch, situate an hour or two outside Buenos Aires, where, ha informed us, there were thousands of duck waiting to be shot. We turned up early in the morning, and while we found that there were literally thousands of duck on the lagunas and swamps, there were also millions .of mosquitoes: After an hour of glorious sport, we were in such pain, and our faces and hands were so swollen, that it was impossible to continue. We held a council of war, and the majority of. two decided that the only thing to do was to go back to the ranch and- seek relief and respite under the mosquito curtains in our bedrooms until the hour fixed for the fiesta which our host had specially, prepared for us. Carnarvon would not hear of this, and, after further discussion, he borrowed the peon's horse and galloped across the pampa to the nearest railway station, where he chartered a special train and returned to Buenos Aires. Next day> when two pitiful figures of fun, with heads and hands swollen to the size of pantomime masks, reproached him with his defection, he smiled sweetly at us, and informed us that as long as lived he would never remain five unnecessary minutes in a place where he was liable to be bitten by mosquitoes.