The
White Ant, Being A Vegetable Feeder, Devours Articles Of Vegetable
Origin Only, And Leather, Which, By Tanning, Is Imbued With A
Vegetable Flavour.
"A man may be rich to-day and poor to-morrow,
from the ravages of white ants," said a Portuguese merchant.
"If he
gets sick, and unable to look after his goods, his slaves neglect
them, and they are soon destroyed by these insects." The reddish
ant, in the west called drivers, crossed our path daily, in solid
columns an inch wide, and never did the pugnacity of either man or
beast exceed theirs. It is a sufficient cause of war if you only
approach them, even by accident. Some turn out of the ranks and
stand with open mandibles, or, charging with extended jaws, bite with
savage ferocity. When hunting, we lighted among them too often;
while we were intent on the game, and without a thought of ants, they
quietly covered us from head to foot, then all began to bite at the
same instant; seizing a piece of the skin with their powerful
pincers, they twisted themselves round with it, as if determined to
tear it out. Their bites are so terribly sharp that the bravest must
run, and then strip to pick off those that still cling with their
hooked jaws, as with steel forceps. This kind abounds in damp
places, and is usually met with on the banks of streams. We have not
heard of their actually killing any animal except the Python, and
that only when gorged and quite lethargic, but they soon clear away
any dead animal matter; this appears to be their principal food, and
their use in the economy of nature is clearly in the scavenger line.
We started from the Sinjere on the 12th of June, our men carrying
with them bundles of hippopotamus meat for sale, and for future use.
We rested for breakfast opposite the Kakolole dyke, which confines
the channel, west of the Manyerere mountain. A rogue monkey, the
largest by far that we ever saw, and very fat and tame, walked off
leisurely from a garden as we approached. The monkey is a sacred
animal in this region, and is never molested or killed, because the
people believe devoutly that the souls of their ancestors now occupy
these degraded forms, and anticipate that they themselves must,
sooner or later, be transformed in like manner; a future as cheerless
for the black as the spirit-rapper's heaven is for the whites. The
gardens are separated from each other by a single row of small
stones, a few handfuls of grass, or a slight furrow made by the hoe.
Some are enclosed by a reed fence of the flimsiest construction, yet
sufficient to keep out the ever wary hippopotamus, who dreads a trap.
His extreme caution is taken advantage of by the women, who hang, as
a miniature trap-beam, a kigelia fruit with a bit of stick in the
end. This protects the maize, of which he is excessively fond.
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