VIPESTS
It is part of the squalid commonplace of life in Africa that the most exciting adventures are not with elephants but with ants, and our worst danger is not the leopard but the mosquito. And this struggle against minute enemies requires more patience than the fight with beasts, both because it is not occasional, but an unremitting warfare, and because it does not appeal to our love of the heroic, nor stimulate with the promise of praise. When Paul tells us that he fought with beasts at Ephesus, our hearts swell with admiration; but if he had said: “I have fought with the mosquitoes in Africa,” he would have elicited no sympathy and some ridicule; although the latter is also a fight for life, and attended by greater danger and weariness and pain.
It is significant that it was in Africa that Moses summoned the ten plagues to his aid in humbling the haughty Pharaoh. If ten had not been sufficient he might have summoned ten times ten, and without exhausting the domestic resources.
We are grateful that common houseflies are not sufficiently numerous to constitute a pest, except where cattle are bred in large numbers. In Gaboon there was no need for screens on doors and windows.
But there are many kinds of flies, and the natives who have not learned to wear clothing commonly carry a fly-brush made of a bunch of stiff grass about two feet long, that they may defend the whole area of the back, where the fly usually makes its attack. When one sees a fly ona neighbour’s back it is regarded as a duty of friendship to come up behind that neighbour slowly and stealthily, giving the fly full time to bite his worst and so be deserving of death, then to strike an awful blow on the neighbour’s back, fit to bring him to his feet with a yell. It seldom harms the fly, but it expresses great indignation, and, by implication, sympathy with your neighbour. The habit of killing flies, or attempting to kill them when they alight, is an obsession with the native, and it seems a physical impossibility for him to resist. He does it in church. When I first preached in Batanga, to a large congregation, I was very much disturbed by this unlooked-for and constant slapping on bare backs. And whenever I saw a man creep quietly across the aisle or forward several seats to perform this friendly office, I could not help watching until I heard the slap, when I always felt like stopping the discourse long enough to ask: “Did you kill it?” For in the mind of all those around there seemed to be nothing else going on in that church but this exhibition of applied Christianity.
Forgetting that the white man is protected by his clothing, they vie with each other in the discharge of this courtesy; and the exasperating blows that the white man receives from his black friends are the chief discomfort that he suffers from the larger flies. One day shortly before leaving Africa I was riding in an open boat when a native man sitting behind me suddenly gave me a slap on the back that actually hurt, and so startled me that I did some fool thing a little short of leaping into the sea. I turned around and asked the man in a tone of cold politeness whether he was trying to make my back the same colour as his.
“Why, no,” said he, “I am killing flies.”
“I’m no fly,” I replied frigidly.
A few minutes later, when I was indulging in asomnolent reverie, he struck me again—I think it must have been in the same place, it hurt so much worse than the first time; whereupon I turned about and, striking a very dangerous attitude (for a missionary), I threatened that if he did it again I would land him a blow in the stomach whether there was a fly there or not. My boat-boys, who knew the uses of clothing and appreciated the immunity of my back from fly-bites as well as the greater tenderness and sensitiveness of the white man’s body, laughed at this interesting diversion. Then they undertook to enlighten their friend from the bush as to the white man’s view-point, combining theoretical instruction with practical sense by removing him to another seat: for they well knew that if he should see another fly on my back, even while they were talking, he would strike again. He cannot help it: the habit is coercive.
Among the worst pests, and peculiar to Africa, is the driver ant. They go together in countless and incomprehensible numbers. The first sight that one gets of them is a glistening black, rapid-running stream about two inches wide crossing the path before him. Upon closer inspection he finds that the stream is composed of ants; and recognizing the driver ant of which he has heard many incredible stories on the way to Africa, he feels like shouting “Fire!” and running for his life. But as a matter of fact he may with impunity examine them as closely as he pleases so long as he does not touch them. They are so occupied with their own serious purpose that they will take no notice of him.
In the middle of the black stream are the females, about the size of our common, black wood-ant, while along the sides run the soldiers guarding from attack, and these are about four times the size of the others. The defense of the females is no matter of necessity, butrather gallantry, for those female viragoes are abundantly able to defend themselves. No creature so small ever had such a bite. They are all provided with jaws and with stings and they know how to work both vigorously. Some fine day as the newcomer saunters along, his eyes engaged with the beauty of the landscape, he walks into the ants. It may be one minute, perhaps two, and possibly five, before he knows anything of the serious mistake he has made. Then suddenly he experiences a sensation which is usually compared to numerous red-hot pincers applied implacably; for these ants do not let go. If he follows the course prescribed by ardent advisers, he will do either of two things: he will instantly strip off his clothing, even if he should be in the governor’s courtyard, yelling the while at the top of his voice so that those who object may go some other way; or he will make a dash for the nearest rain-barrel and tumble into it. Fortunately, their bite is not poisonous and leaves no bad effects afterwards. After this experience he will never allow more than one eye to dwell upon the charm of the landscape; the other will be directed to the path before him. If a man must go out at night he always carries a lantern.
When these ants come to a place where there is food to their liking, they scatter and spread out over a large area. Then, of course, they are not so quickly discovered, and one may easily walk into them. They are one of the trials of bush-travel, and the worst living nuisance of the bush, where the undergrowth hides them even from the keen eye of the native. There is seldom a day on a bush journey that the caravan does not march into the drivers. Then there is some wild yelling by those in the lead; the cry, “Drivers!” goes all along the line and each man as he comes to them makes a lively dash through them, stamping heavily as he runs; for it ispossible thus to keep them off or to shake them off before they get a hold. All other insects and animals flee before them, including the python and the leopard.
Travellers have frequently told how that the silent, sleeping forest has suddenly become all astir and vocal, the angry boom of the gorilla or the frightened bleat of the gazelle alternating with a cry of the leopard and the scream of the elephant; all forgetful of their mutual hostility and vying with one another in the speed of their escape from the driver ant, abroad on a foraging expedition, to the number of infinity.
They make frequent visits to the native villages and the white man’s premises, usually in the night, spreading over the whole place,—the ground, the houses, inside and out, and through the roofs. Here they act as scavengers, driving before them all other insect nuisances, such as the cockroaches and centipedes, which especially infest the thatched roofs. Nevertheless, if one should hear the language of the average white man, upon the occasion of one of these nocturnal visitations, when the drivers have wakened him rudely and driven him headlong out into the dark, and perhaps the rain, there to shiver during this untimely house-cleaning, one would not for a moment mistake it for an expression of gratitude.
Setting hens must be kept carefully out of their way. In one instance I knew of the drivers visiting a nest one night when the young chickens were just coming out of the shells. The empty shells were there in the morning, but no chickens. If they should gain undiscovered access to a chicken-house in the night, they would leave nothing but bones and feathers. At Efulen we built our chicken-house against the workmen’s house, on the side away from the bush, so that the drivers on their approach should first visit the workmen and we should be warned in time to save our chickens.
We had been there only a short time when we were awakened one night by the familiar outcry as the men were driven out of their house. But the drivers had come from a different direction that night, and when we went to the chicken-house we found it already in their possession. It was but the work of a minute or two to tuck our pajamas inside our socks, bind our sleeves with handkerchiefs around the wrists, tie another handkerchief around the neck and pull a cap down over the head. Thus prepared I entered the chicken-house, the ground and walls of which were a glistening black mass. Stamping my feet all the time, I snatched the chickens one by one from the roost, stripped the handful of loose ants from their legs and handed them out to Dr. Good and Mr. Kerr, who picked off the remaining ants, after which we brought the chickens into our house and put them on the pantry shelves until morning, meanwhile building a line of fire around the house to keep the drivers back.
But it was not long after this that they found the house unguarded one morning just at daylight when I was alone at Efulen. I was awake but not yet ready to rise when I heard a low, rustling sound upon the floor of my room. After a few minutes, observing that it was becoming more distinct, I drew back my mosquito-net and looked out. Almost the entire floor was black with the drivers, and they were close to the bed. From the foot of the bed towards the door it was still possible for me to escape by a good jump; and in a moment I found myself shivering out in the yard while my clothes were still in the house.
One day, as Dr. Good and I were entering a native village, Dr. Good walked through some stray drivers. He began to preach to the people, who as it happened were already gathered in the street where they had been taking a palaver. Before he had been preaching more than aminute I observed that his gestures were more animated than I had ever seen before. Soon they became violent, noticeably irrelevant and even of questionable propriety. It was a little like Brer Rabbit, one evening when the mosquitoes were bad, telling the wolf about his grandfather’s spots. I looked on with increasing amazement and consternation, until at last even Dr. Good’s indomitable will was overborne, and he shouted: “Drivers!” and bolted abruptly for the bush. I tried to go on with the service, but it was almost impossible because of the laughter of the audience. Each one insisted upon telling his neighbours all about it, to the accompaniment of a broad caricature of Dr. Good’s gestures.
There was once a native man in Gaboon who was slightly deranged in his mind. The government advised, and at last insisted, that he should not be allowed at large. His family, being averse to confining him, chiefly, I imagine, because of the care it would entail upon them, sent him to a village of their relations across the river ten miles distant. There he remained for some time. The people there bound him at night lest he might set fire to the town while they slept. He objected to this and at last became troublesome by calling out continually during the night. Then they improvised a rude shelter back a short distance from the town, where they placed him at night and as usual bound him. One night he was more noisy than ever before, yelling and screaming hideously so that he wakened the people. They thought that he had become demented but no one went to him until morning, and then they made the horrible discovery that the drivers had attacked and devoured him.
In some tribes criminals are sometimes punished by being bound to the ground in the track of the drivers. One can hardly conceive of anything more horrible; for they would enter ears and eyes and nostrils. But I believethis is very rarely done. When death is decided upon, the Africans usually accomplish it by quick means.
There is another ant which I would say is worse than the driver, were it not that as yet its distribution is limited and it may be only transient. It is a very small red ant difficult to see with the naked eye except in a good light and on a white surface. It takes to dark closets, upholstered furniture, hair mattresses and those who would sleep upon them. It has not been long known in those portions of West Africa that are familiar to the white man. It has come from the southeast towards the coast. In 1900 it took possession of our mission-house at Angom, which was not occupied at that time.
It is doubtful whether this ant would be likely to infest a house when the grass around it is kept closely cut and the house well opened to the light and air; but when once infested it is not clear that these precautions would drive it out. One of Woermann’s trading-houses on the Ogowè had to be abandoned because of it.
My first experience with it was in 1900 when I visited Angom and slept in the mission-house that had been occupied only occasionally for more than a year. I was no sooner asleep than I was awakened by an extremely painful sensation, as if red-hot pepper had been sprinkled all over me. I felt no sharp bite, but only this intolerable smarting pain. It occurred to me that I might have been poisoned during the day by some violently poisonous herb in the bush or the overgrown garden; but I remained in bed never thinking that the cause of it was there. The natives told me in the morning what it was. My flesh was badly inflamed and I had fever all that day. After that I always slept in the boat, or in later years, the launch, when I visited Angom.
Among African pests there is another red ant, very small, though not so small as the last. It does not bitenor attack the person, but is nevertheless a great nuisance, particularly to housekeepers. All table food must be kept out of its way. Any food remaining on the table even an hour is covered with them. They are especially fond of sugar; and if it is left on the table or unprotected from one meal to the next, it is found a living red mass. By what powerful instinct they immediately discover the place where food is, and where they come from in such numbers, are among the mysteries that the white man will often ponder. Most of our food is imported, in tins, and once a tin is opened it is kept away from these ants by being placed in a safe suspended from the ceiling by tarred rope. The safe is a light frame of wood covered with wire screen or netting.
Besides these, there are numerous other varieties of ants, less harmful, or altogether harmless. The ground is so infested with them that neither white man nor native ever thinks of sitting down upon it, as we might sit upon the grass in this country. Altogether, more than five thousand varieties of ants have been described and classified; and most of these are found in Africa.
Among the worst of the African pests is thejigger. Those who are most sensitive to it would without doubt call it the worst of all. If the pest of the small ant travels from the interior towards the coast, this pest began at the coast and is extending towards the interior. It has evidently been imported—tradition says from Brazil, in the cargo and sand ballast of sailing vessels. The older inhabitants along the coast remember when it first became known, and I am sure that it made itself known very soon after it arrived. The jigger is a tiny species of flea, so small that the naked eye sees it with difficulty. It has all the reprehensible habits of its kind. The males hop all over one’s person in a playful manner, giving him a nip here and a nip there; but the females burrow beneaththe skin. The favourite place is the feet, especially under the nails, but they are frequently found also under the finger nails and sometimes in the elbows and knees. Here the female, unless discovered and removed, forms a sac which expands to the size of a small pea, and which contains hundreds of little jiggers who soon begin to “jig” for themselves, and burrow again in the same flesh. Many of them however are scattered on the ground; those that remain keep multiplying, until if neglected the whole foot becomes a festering sore.
To the African child the jigger is the occasion of its worst suffering. I have seen children who could not walk, some with toes eaten away, and several with nearly the whole foot gone. For, to the African and to some white men, they are not irritating while boring beneath the skin, and afterwards they are very hard to see, especially in the black skin of the native. One may know nothing of their presence for several days, after which they are so hard to remove that the native child will bear the irritating itch that they first occasion rather than submit to the pain of removing them; and when the itch has become a painful sore, no child could remove them. Some African mothers watch their children’s feet closely but others neglect them cruelly. I am glad to say that those who allow their feet to get full of jiggers, or mothers who neglect the care of their children’s feet, are looked down upon, as lousy persons would be among us, though not to the same extent.
The jiggers are less troublesome in the wet season. But with the dry season their numbers increase rapidly, and towards the close of the season the soil and the sand are fairly alive with them. If possible, missionary boarding-schools ought to have vacation at this time; for the white missionary is sure to get them in the schoolroom; and the dormitories, which usually have only earthenfloors, become so infested with them that even native children are often kept awake at night, and the amount of discipline necessary to make them keep their feet in order may demoralize the school. There are always children, large and small, who need no supervision, and are sufficiently self-respecting to keep their feet clean; but their task is made exceedingly difficult by the presence in the same dormitory of those who breed jiggers by thousands. As a rule, with but few exceptions, the children who keep their feet clean are those who have been in the school before and are known as mission-boys and mission-girls.
In my boys’ boarding-school of later years one would see a strange sight each day during the dry season. The whole school filed out at recess and sat down along either side of the path leading to the mission-house. A committee of boys examined the feet of the others and reported to me the name of every boy who had jiggers in his feet; while I stood with note-book in hand and wrote down their names. Then when the food was given out at noon these boys were left without food until their feet were pronounced clean. The larger boys were responsible for those of their own town or family who were too small to attend to their own feet. I once kept a boy more than a day without food until he removed his jiggers, and one hopeless boy I at last expelled from the school for the offense. For rigid insistence upon this discipline, I felt, lay close to moral instruction.
The white man of course suffers from jiggers, but not so much as the native, because of his shoes, his cleaner house, and because his feet are more sensitive, so that he becomes aware of them after several days at the most, when they can be removed without injury, if it is very carefully done. After one has been in Africa a length of time he will detect their presence as soon as they begin toburrow. Some white men have a native boy examine their feet every night or morning; for the boy has very sharp eyes, and he removes the jigger with surprising skill. It can be done with a pin; a needle is better and a pair of tweezers is still better. If the sac that is formed after several days be broken in the removal, it may cause a sore that will take some time to heal. Indeed, if one be greatly reduced in health and the blood in bad condition, it may not heal at all until he leaves the country on furlough. I have known men who for weeks were not able to wear a shoe because of jigger sores.
After I had been a few months in Africa, one day, while in bed with fever, I said to a friend that in allowing my feet to touch the floor beside the bed where natives had been standing, I must have caught the itch; for a most irritating itch had been troubling me for several days. My friend at once suggested jiggers as the cause. I answered with great assurance that it certainly was not jiggers, for I had watched my feet very closely, having determined from the first that I should get no jiggers—which of course was true, but I suppose I had been watching for creatures the size of potato-bugs crawling over my feet I at once called a native boy, however, wishing perhaps to assure my friend, and the boy found seven colonies of jiggers. It took my feet a long time to heal. But it never happened again.
The male jigger, as I have said, does not burrow in the flesh, but disports himself upon the surface and makes himself very numerous. He is one of the great variety of influences that keep the white man constantly scratching. The native scratches too, scratches most of the time, and often with both hands, but he does not get excited about it, nor attract so much attention. But the habit is disgusting in the white man, and after all it is a habit rather than a necessity. A minority exercise thestrongest self-restraint, a larger number exercise restraint sometimes; many white men, however, exercise no restraint at all, but scratch continually, regardless of the occasion.
The sandfly, ormidge, not known at the coast, but widely distributed in the interior, must be counted among the worst of African pests. They also are exceedingly small. They do their utmost to make life intolerable in the early morning hours after daylight, and again in the evening before dark. Some are more sensitive to them than others. When I was living in the interior, I bathed my hands and face in kerosene or turpentine each morning and evening as their hour approached and sometimes repeated it once or twice before they retired.
The mosquitoes are so bad, especially in the low places along the coast, that even the natives must sleep under mosquito nets.
In the song of our childhood we were impressed with the possibilities of such minutiæ—as little drops of water, little grains of sand and little moments of time, when these are multiplied by infinity. But infinity is the status of all insect life in Africa. In order to realize the pest of the mosquito in towns adjacent to mangrove swamps one must multiply the insect until it seems to compose about fifty per cent. of the atmosphere. Its music too is impressive.
Wherever possible the white man builds his house upon a well-cleared hill and so escapes them, sometimes almost entirely as at Baraka. But this is not always possible. Many missionaries have told of writing letters while sitting cross-legged on their beds with the mosquito-net drawn down around the bed.
The centipede is common, especially in those houses that have thatch roofs. The African centipede is very large, and its bite is poisonous, though rarely fatal. Myfirst experience with it was one morning, in my bedroom, when I took a bouquet of flowers off the table and held them to my face. A large centipede glided out of the flowers, and running swiftly across my hand and along my arm to the elbow, dropped to the floor. Fortunately, my sleeve was short, else I should have been bitten. But one morning that I shall not forget I put on a sock, and there was a centipede in the toe of it. Unfortunately the sock was in a state of good repair; there was no hole in the toe. I was badly bitten, for it was some time before I could get the sock off; and the sickening feeling of repulsion was worse than the bite. I afterwards acquired the habit of shaking socks and shoes and clothing before putting them on. It is well worth while; for if one is disappointed in the matter of centipedes, one may perhaps shed a scorpion or several roaches, or sometimes even a snake. There are scorpions in all parts of Africa and in some places they abound. Their bite is always bad, and that of some varieties is dangerous.
But if I were asked my opinion as to the very worst pest in Africa, I would name the roach, orcockroach, and I think that the majority of white men would agree with me. My aversion to this creature is so strong that I do not pretend to be able to give a dispassionate judgment. It is abeastof an insect. It is much larger than the familiar cockroach of this country and is often two inches long; and all its powers and qualities of disposition are proportionately developed. It multiplies with amazing rapidity. It has an odour that for real nastiness takes preëminent rank even in malodorous Africa. It has a voracious appetite, eats almost everything and seems to get fat on arsenic, which I have fed to it in large quantities; though some persons declare that it thrives on arsenic by not eating it and by detecting it even whenmixed with sugar or anything else. It is found in the pantry, in clothing, in the library, in furniture, in every drawer and every corner, and a thatch roof is soon full of them. Even in bed one is not always free from them, for during sleep they often nibble one’s nails and hair. The only way to kill the cockroach is to crush it, and the result is so disgusting that one will feel that it has more than avenged its death. Once in a while in the evening all the cockroaches take to flying, as if seized with a panic or madness. And when they do this they make one forget all the other pests of Africa.
If the least bit of butter or grease should touch a suit, one may depend upon it that unless it is put in a roach-proof trunk the roach will find that spot, and in the morning a hole will be eaten through. They devour wool as a horse eats hay; but they will leave both wool and grease for the starch contained in cloth bookbindings. They show a decided preference for new books, the starch being softer in these. If, in a moment of supreme folly, one should leave a book uncovered on a table over night, he will find it in the morning with several spots upon it the size of a dime, where the starch and colour are eaten out and the bare gray threads exposed. This happened to myMemoirs of Tennyson; both volumes were badly defaced in one night. Of course one will cover with heavy paper—when hehasthe paper—every book in his library, or, at least, those that are not already spoiled by the time he gets round to them; but books so covered lose their identity, like friends in masquerade. Besides, books thus kept in paper in that damp atmosphere will soon be covered with mould. If one adds to this that while roaches or mould are destroying the outside of his books white ants are doing their best to get at the inside, he will see that the obstacles incident to literary pursuits in Africa are well-nigh insuperable.
I cannot dismiss the white ant with this passing notice, for it also is one of the pests of Africa; indeed, there are many who regard it as the worst of the African pests. It is characteristic of the impudent hypocrisy of this stealthy insect that it should somehow get itself called awhite ant, when, as a matter of fact, it is not an ant at all, and is not white. It is a dirty-yellowtermite, a soft-bodied insect, in appearance like a very small piece of impure tallow. It is commonest in Africa, but is also found in South America, India and Ceylon, and one species, it is said, is even found as far north as Bordeaux.
The admirable and interesting features of the white ant (and it has some) have nowhere been better described than in Henry Drummond’s charming chapter inTropical Africa.
The white ant lives underground in colonies of enormous numbers. It feeds chiefly on dead wood, and its presence is the explanation of the noticeable fact that there is very little dead wood—rotting logs or fallen branches—in an African forest. It does not wait until dead branches fall, but climbs the trees in search of them. But as its body is choice food for birds and other insects, and as it is defenseless and even blind, it protects itself whenever it comes above ground by building an earthen tunnel over itself as it climbs. This yellowish brown tunnel, a half tube in form, and half an inch wide, one will see running up trees and posts everywhere in Africa. In building it they carry the earth in grains or little pellets from below the ground through the tunnel to the open end of it; then having covered the pellet thoroughly with a sticky secretion they place it firmly in its proper position and hurry away for another. The soldiers of the colony, which are very few comparatively, are armed with formidable jaws. Two or three of these guard the open end of the tunnel where the work is being done. Theytake no part in the work of construction. But if an enemy, usually in the form of an ant, draw near with the object of capturing a worker, the soldier in an instant will be upon him. He may pound him to death, or thrust him through, or using his mandibles like a pair of scissors may cut him in two, or hurl him from the battlement as with a catapult; these different methods representing different species. After this the workers again proceed with the building of the tunnel. These tunnels are for temporary use and are not nearly as substantial as the nests. They crumble into dust after a few weeks and are blown away by the wind or washed down by the rain.
The ant-hills and the ground below are filled with an intricate network of tunnels. Professor Drummond tells us that in the elevated plains of Central Africa these ant-hills are mounds ten or fifteen feet high and thirty or forty feet in diameter, and even then the greater part of the ant habitation is underground; and that the amount of reddish-brown earth plastered upon the trees is sufficient to give tone to the landscape. And this he says is the great agricultural process of the tropics, which in temperate zones is accomplished by the earthworm carrying the under soil to the surface, transposing the upper and the lower layers, doing thoroughly what man does rudely with the plough. In the lower plains of West Africa, the white ant is not so abundant, nor the ant-hills nearly so large as those which Professor Drummond saw. Nor is there any such need of them, for the earthworm is common enough. The more numerous ant-hills are two or three feet high and are often shaped like a series of bowls turned upside down one on top of another; but the shape varies. A good way to provide for young chickens is to send a boy to the bush to get an ant-hill, then break off several small pieces at a time andgive to the chickens. It will be full of ants, and the happiness of the chickens will be ample reward: there is nothing that they like better.
And that reminds me that Schweinfurth, inThe Heart of Africa, relates that he himself ate white ants in unlimited quantities. He says they are especially good with corn. And then he recommends them as best when they are “partly boiled and partly fried.” I never tried them that way.
The most painstaking study and the most elaborate description of the white ant that has ever been made is probably that of Karl Escherich, whose book,Termitenleben auf Ceylon, has recently been published. Escherich spent three months in Ceylon studying the white ant. He describes thirty-five species of termite existing in Ceylon.
In the nest (thetermetarium) of many of the species of white ants there are tunnels and chambers devoted to the growing of a certain fungus—real fungus gardens. Sometimes two different species of termite inhabit the same nest, or termites and ants. They live in different galleries which intermingle but never open into each other. If by the breaking of a wall they should come together fierce battles ensue. Sometimes other insects, certain beetles, for instance, live with the termites as guests, to whom they even feed the larvæ. Their presence is probably a protection against their enemies; and they seem to have many. An army of marauding ants will sometimes invade the nest and seek to carry off the occupants.
There are several distinct castes in the social organization of the termites; the queen, the males, the soldiers, the workers and the larvæ. The queen is enormous in size as compared with the workers; sometimes three inches long. And exalted to the throne she never movesagain, but confines her activities to the laying of eggs, which she deposits at the rate of several thousand a day. But more remarkable than either her size or her ugliness is the fact (stated by Escherich) that she sweats out to the surface of her body a substance which is eagerly devoured by the workers. It is this “exudate” which binds them to her and for which they feed and cherish her. The workers are continually licking her and Escherich declares that he saw one worker tear out a piece of the mother’s hide and eagerly drink the liquid which flowed from the wound. And as her body was scarred in many places it would seem that this was not uncommon.
A certain “ant-exterminator” has been used successfully in destroying the white ant. It consists of a charcoal stove on one side of which is a hand-pump and on the other a hose. A powder of eighty-five parts of arsenic and fifteen parts of sulphur is thrown upon the glowing charcoal and by means of the pump and the hose the fumes are forced into the nest. Then the entrance is plugged and the nest is left thus for several days.
But perhaps somebody is asking why an insect so wonderful and interesting should be destroyed at all. And that reminds me that I classified the white ant as a pest—and one of the worst pests in Africa.
When the white ant devours an object, a dead branch, for instance, it works inside, consumes the whole interior and leaves the thinnest shell of an exterior, an empty shape, which yields at a touch and falls into dust or nothing. And unless one watches very closely, or provides some special protection, it will do this same thing with his house or the furniture in it, or the wooden posts under it. White men’s houses are built upon posts and elevated several feet from the ground. A post beneath the house, though of the hardest wood, and appearing to the eye tobe quite sound, may in fact be a hollow cylinder which will collapse at a kick. Iron pillars are now generally used instead of wood, iron being about the only substance which the white ant cannot eat. But one must watch the iron pillars closely for the earthen tunnel leading from the ground to the wooden beams above; for once they get into a house they can never be gotten out. A board in the floor will collapse, or a trunk, of which they have left only a shell. They are very fond of paper; so one must especially watch his library, or some day he will take down his favourite poet only to find that there is nothing of it but cover and the edges of the leaves. I know this very thing to have happened.
I contracted a special prejudice against them when they came out of the floor into my barrel of sermons—and I remembered the particular quality of food they are supposed to relish. I was not using those sermons in Africa and it is not likely I should ever have used them again anywhere; neither am I the victim of any delusion in regard to the loss that the world sustained in their destruction. The loss was mine alone, and was chiefly sentimental. But a minister usually has a unique regard for his sermons, a regard proportioned to the extent that they represent the sweat of the brain and the heart. In this instance the destruction was only partial; for by a mere accident I discovered them before they had entirely chewed and digested all my sermons.
These are a few of the most troublesome insect pests, and there are others.
There is the big flying beetle, purblind and stupid, that comes in the evening and looks the size of a bat; that circles around the table several times, with a noisy boom, tumbles at length into the gravy and then flops into your face. There is the hippo fly, like an enormous horsefly, that thrusts a stiletto into one through his clothing.In the upper part of the Gaboon River, where navigation with a launch was dangerous and I stood constantly by the engine, I had a boy, sometimes two boys, standing beside me with fly-brushes to keep them off.
There are caterpillars the very touch of whose hair is poisonous and produces an irritation of the skin. There are wasps that daub nests of mud on frames and furniture and even on clothing if it is left hanging for a while without being disturbed. In many parts there are myriads of may-flies that swarm about sunset, that is, about dinnertime. Sir Harry Johnston complains that these may-flies give soup an aromatic flavour. There is the boring beetle that burrows into the rafters, reducing them to dust. There is thewalking-stick, a slender dead twig, six or eight inches long, with lateral stems, which you sometimes find hanging to your curtains or mosquito-net, and which, when you take it in your fingers to throw it out, suddenly spreads aborted wings, nearly transparent and of purple hue, and flies around you, a creature of only one magnitude—length without breadth; a conglomeration of dark lines plunging through the air. Then, startled out of your wits, you think you have seen the devil for sure.
I have not touched upon the numerous internal parasites that prey upon humanity. Only a scientific expert ought to risk telling extensively of these incredibilities. Among them is theeye-worm, one of theFilaria, which in spite of its euphonious name is an abomination. It is a white, thread-like worm, an inch long, that goes all through the body beneath the epidermis. It becomes visible only in the white of the eye, and while there a doctor can remove it. But it must be done, not only with extreme care, but promptly, for it does not stay long in one place. It is extremely irritating in the eye, but in other parts of the body, although it causes distressful itching, it is not so irritating as one would expect. Itsometimes causes swelling, especially in the back of the hand. Every few days my forearm or my hand was swollen from the presence of this worm. I have seen a ridge across the nose where a colony was passing. I have been told that the eye-worm and the worm that circulates beneath the epidermis are not identical. I am not sure about it; but I hope there are not two of them.
The guinea worm belongs to the same family, with the beautiful name, theFilaria. The larva enters the human body in drinking-water and makes its way to the subcutaneous tissue of its host’s leg, where it often causes serious abscesses. It grows rapidly, curling round and round and raising the skin. It often reaches a length of ten feet and sometimes more.
All African houses are infested with rats and mice. The white man has introduced the cat. But there are still very few and they are so highly valued that among the Fang in late years a cat has been made a part of the dowry which a man pays for his wife. It was several months after our first house was built at Efulen before we were able to procure a cat from the coast. In that time the rats had full possession of the house and merely tolerated us. They gambolled all night over the beds in which we were sleeping, and over ourselves, sometimes even getting under the cover. I had always abhorred them, and I was led to use a mosquito-net, not for mosquitoes, but to keep the rats out. I never got so used to them but that I sprang out of bed whenever they got into it. Finding that the mosquito-net did not altogether suffice, I hit upon the happy expedient of keeping a lamp lighted in my room all night. This was effective to some extent, but only by driving them into the rooms occupied by my fellow missionaries, Dr. Good and Mr. Kerr, whose abhorrence of them, however, was not equal to mine. They wondered why I kept the lamp burning, but I didnot tell them; for if we all had lamps the rats would have no choice of room, and surely a man has some right to profit by his own discovery. I desisted from this practice as soon as Dr. Good solved my purpose, which he did one night after he had gone to bed, and instantly announced it with a shout.
But at last a new missionary arrived in the shape of a gray cat, and we welcomed her with a lavish entertainment of sport and feast, delicately adapted to the instinct and the palate of her feline ladyship. All that night there was wild riot in the pantry where we had put her. In the morning that cat was the shape of a beer-barrel; and, besides, there lay on the pantry floor nine dead rats.
When I slept in native houses I always wore socks at night. The natives declare that the rats attack them during sleep, especially their feet. And they say that the rat blows upon the wound that it makes so that the sleeper will not feel it. From this belief there is a current proverb which they apply to a flatterer, or to one who, while using smooth words, would inflict an injury: “He blows upon the wound that he makes.”
The natives are perhaps more afraid of snakes than anything else, and with good reason. Africa is the home of deadly snakes. Most of them are nocturnal, and as the white man stays within doors at night, he may be in Africa many months before he realizes how abundant they are. Whenever it was necessary to go out at night, I always carried a long staff which I pushed along the path ahead of me.
One of our schoolboys at Gaboon, one night about eight o’clock, was walking down towards the beach in the middle of a wide road, when he stepped on a small snake. It bit him, and in about half an hour he died in great agony. At Batanga a woman one night, steppingout of her door, placed her foot on a snake that was coiled upon the door-step. She was bitten and died immediately. Sometimes they get into the thatch roofs of the houses, and between the bamboo walls; but this rarely happens in the better houses in which the white man lives. One of our missionary ladies at Benito, while she was sick in bed with fever, found a snake coiled under her pillow.
The natives upon being bitten by a snake immediately cauterize the wound with a red-hot iron; or, when that is not procurable, they will cut out a piece of the flesh around it, often cutting off a finger or a toe to save a life. They seem to have the idea that all snakes are deadly, and if one ask, in regard to a particular snake, whether it is poisonous, the certain response will be an exclamation of astonishment at his ignorance. They solemnly declare in regard to many varieties that they will spring at a man and go straight through his body. This is a strange delusion, considering their usual accuracy of observation and knowledge in regard to animals. It is probably accounted for by the superstitions that attach to snakes. In many African tribes the snake is sacred. In those tribes they are frequently used by the priests as an ordeal in discovering criminals. The people are ranged about the priest, who is a snake-charmer. He passes around bringing the snake into contact with each person. The person whom it bites is adjudged guilty.
The characteristic snakes, especially the deadly vipers which abound, are of bright and variegated colours, green, red, yellow and black. Some call them beautiful, but in most of us the association of ideas makes it impossible for us to see any beauty in a snake. Their colours are the very colours of nature around them; and therefore, instead of making them conspicuous, are really an approximation to invisibility—though I believe that theprotective colouration of animals, as a principle, has been exaggerated.
A recent traveller says that in crossing the entire continent of Africa he saw only two snakes, and he adds that since he succeeded in killing both of them there are now no snakes in Africa, so far as he knows. I am reminded of a vivid experience when an American friend, Mr. Northam, stayed some months in Gaboon and collected biological specimens. Mr. Northam asked me whether there were many snakes around Gaboon. I told him that there were very few. At his suggestion I told my schoolboys that he wished to collect snakes and would give them something for all the valuable snakes they would bring to him. The immediate result was enough to make a man think that he had been suddenly precipitated into a state of delirium tremens. I had not supposed that there were so many snakes in all Africa. A continual procession of boys passed my door, each with some horrible kind of snake dangling from a stick, or dragging along the ground. And I had said there were but few snakes in Gaboon! The explanation is that I kept to the paths while abroad, and snakes are seldom found in the paths in the daytime; for they are mostly nocturnal in their habits, and I was not. But the boys know where to find them at any time.
After all, life in Africa is quite tolerable. As I think back over this formidable array of pests, I am somewhat surprised that I was not more conscious of them while in Africa, and that I had leisure to do anything else but fight them. The explanation is that, although one is fighting some of them all the time, one is never fighting them all at the same time.