One Day Native Honey Was Brought In, Which Had Been Found In A Hollow Tree.

It was sweet, but thin, and had no pronounced flavour.

A few minutes after the honey had been left on a plate in my tent there arrived a number of large yellow hornets, quite harmless apparently, but persevering in their eagerness to feast upon the honey. During the foggy afternoon they gathered in increased numbers and were driven off with difficulty. The temporary removal of the plate failed to diminish their persistence until finally, at dusk, they disappeared, only to return again in the morning, bringing others much larger in size and more vicious in aspect, and the remaining sweet was consumed with incredible rapidity; in less than two hours a considerable quantity of the honey in the comb as well as liquid was finished by no great number of hornets.

Later several species of ants found their way into my provision boxes. A large one, dark-gray, almost black, in colour, more than a centimetre long, was very fond of sweet things. According to the Malays, if irritated it is able to sting painfully, but in spite of its formidable appearance it is timid and easily turned away, so for a long time I put up with its activities, though gradually these ants got to be a nuisance by walking into my cup, which they sometimes filled, or into my drinking-water. Another species, much smaller, which also was fond of sugar, pretended to be dead when discovered. One day at ten o'clock in the morning, I observed two of the big ants, which I had come to look upon as peaceful, in violent combat outside my tent. A large number of very tiny ones were busily attaching themselves to legs and antennae of both fighters, who did not, however, greatly mind the small fellows, which were repeatedly shaken off as the pair moved along in deadly grip.

One of the combatants clasped his nippers firmly around one leg of the other, which for several hours struggled in vain to get free. A small ant was hanging on to one of the victor's antennae, but disappeared after a couple of hours. Under a magnifying-glass I could see that each fighter had lost a leg. I placed the end of a stick against the legs of the one that was kept in this merciless vice, and he immediately attached himself to it. As I lifted the stick up he held on by one leg, supporting in this way both his own weight and that of his antagonist. Finally, they ceased to move about, but did not separate in spite of two heavy showers in the afternoon, and at four o'clock they were still maintaining their relative positions; but next morning they and the other ants had disappeared.

CHAPTER V

MEETING PUNANS, THE SHY JUNGLE PEOPLE - DOWN THE RIVER AGAIN - MY ENTHUSIASTIC BOATMEN-MALAYS VERSUS DAYAKS

At my request the raja, with a few companions, went out in search of some of the shy jungle people called Punans.

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