Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa, David Livingstone [novels for teenagers .TXT] 📗

ought to have come. Among the rest stands the mola, with its dark brownish-green color and spreading oak-like form.

In the distance there are ranges of low hills. On the north we have one called Kanjele, and to the east that of Kaonka, to which we proceed to-morrow.

We have made a considerable detour to the north, both on account of our wish to avoid the tsetse and to visit the people. Those of Kaonka are the last Batoka we shall meet, in friendship with the Makololo.

Walking down to the forest, after telling these poor people, for the first time in their lives, that the Son of God had so loved them as to come down from heaven to save them, I observed many regiments of black soldier-ants returning from their marauding expeditions. These I have often noticed before in different parts of the country; and as we had, even at Kolobeng, an opportunity of observing their habits, I may give a short account of them here. They are black, with a slight tinge of gray, about half an inch in length, and on the line of march appear three or four abreast; when disturbed, they utter a distinct hissing or chirping sound. They follow a few leaders who never carry any thing, and they seem to be guided by a scent left on the path by the leaders; for, happening once to throw the water from my basin behind a bush where I was dressing, it lighted on the path by which a regiment had passed before I began my toilette, and when they returned they were totally at a loss to find the way home, though they continued searching for it nearly half an hour.

It was found only by one making a long circuit round the wetted spot.

The scent may have indicated also the propriety of their going in one direction only. If a handful of earth is thrown on the path at the middle of the regiment, either on its way home or abroad, those behind it are completely at a loss as to their farther progress.

Whatever it may be that guides them, they seem only to know that they are not to return, for they come up to the handful of earth, but will not cross it, though not a quarter of an inch high.

They wheel round and regain their path again, but never think of retreating to the nest, or to the place where they have been stealing.

After a quarter of an hour's confusion and hissing, one may make a circuit of a foot round the earth, and soon all follow in that roundabout way. When on their way to attack the abode of the white ants, the latter may be observed rushing about in a state of great perturbation.

The black leaders, distinguished from the rest by their greater size, especially in the region of the sting, then seize the white ants one by one, and inflict a sting, which seems to inject a portion of fluid similar in effect to chloroform, as it renders them insensible, but not dead, and only able to move one or two front legs. As the leaders toss them on one side, the rank and file seize them and carry them off.

One morning I saw a party going forth on what has been supposed to be a slave-hunting expedition. They came to a stick, which, being inclosed in a white-ant gallery, I knew contained numbers of this insect; but I was surprised to see the black soldiers passing without touching it.

I lifted up the stick and broke a portion of the gallery, and then laid it across the path in the middle of the black regiment.

The white ants, when uncovered, scampered about with great celerity, hiding themselves under the leaves, but attracted little attention from the black marauders till one of the leaders caught them, and, applying his sting, laid them in an instant on one side in a state of coma; the others then promptly seized them and rushed off.

On first observing these marauding insects at Kolobeng, I had the idea, imbibed from a work of no less authority than Brougham's Paley, that they seized the white ants in order to make them slaves; but, having rescued a number of captives, I placed them aside, and found that they never recovered from the state of insensibility into which they had been thrown by the leaders. I supposed then that the insensibility had been caused by the soldiers holding the necks of the white ants too tightly with their mandibles, as that is the way they seize them; but even the pupae which I took from the soldier-ants, though placed in a favorable temperature, never became developed. In addition to this, if any one examines the orifice by which the black ant enters his barracks, he will always find a little heap of hard heads and legs of white ants, showing that these black ruffians are a grade lower than slave-stealers, being actually cannibals. Elsewhere I have seen a body of them removing their eggs from a place in which they were likely to be flooded by the rains; I calculated their numbers to be 1260; they carried their eggs a certain distance, then laid them down, when others took them and carried them farther on. Every ant in the colony seemed to be employed in this laborious occupation, yet there was not a white slave-ant among them. One cold morning I observed a band of another species of black ant returning each with a captive; there could be no doubt of their cannibal propensities, for the "brutal soldiery" had already deprived the white ants of their legs.

The fluid in the stings of this species is of an intensely acid taste.

I had often noticed the stupefaction produced by the injection of a fluid from the sting of certain insects before. It is particularly observable in a hymenopterous insect called the "plasterer" (`Pelopaeus Eckloni'), which in his habits resembles somewhat the mason-bee. It is about an inch and a quarter in length, jet black in color, and may be observed coming into houses, carrying in its fore legs a pellet of soft plaster about the size of a pea. When it has fixed upon a convenient spot for its dwelling, it forms a cell about the same length as its body, plastering the walls so as to be quite thin and smooth inside.

When this is finished, all except a round hole, it brings seven or eight caterpillars or spiders, each of which is rendered insensible, but not killed, by the fluid from its sting. These it deposits in the cell, and then one of its own larvae, which, as it grows, finds food quite fresh.

The insects are in a state of coma, but the presence of vitality prevents putridity, or that drying up which would otherwise take place in this climate. By the time the young insect is full grown and its wings completely developed, the food is done. It then pierces the wall of its cell at the former door, or place last filled up by its parent, flies off, and begins life for itself. The plasterer is a most useful insect, as it acts as a check on the inordinate increase of caterpillars and spiders.

It may often be seen with a caterpillar or even a cricket much larger than itself, but they lie perfectly still after the injection of chloroform, and the plasterer, placing a row of legs on each side of the body, uses both legs and wings in trailing the victim along.

The fluid in each case is, I suppose, designed to cause insensibility, and likewise act as an antiseptic, the death of the victims being without pain.

Without these black soldier-ants the country would be overrun by the white ants; they are so extremely prolific, and nothing can exceed the energy with which they work. They perform a most important part in the economy of nature by burying vegetable matter as quickly beneath the soil as the ferocious red ant does dead animal substances.

The white ant keeps generally out of sight, and works under galleries constructed by night to screen them from the observation of birds.

At some given signal, however, I never could ascertain what, they rush out by hundreds, and the sound of their mandibles cutting grass into lengths may be heard like a gentle wind murmuring through the leaves of the trees. They drag these pieces to the doors of their abodes, and after some hours' toil leave off work, and many of the bits of grass may be seen collected around the orifice.

They continue out of sight for perhaps a month, but they are never idle.

On one occasion, a good bundle of grass was laid down for my bed on a spot which was quite smooth and destitute of plants.

The ants at once sounded the call to a good supply of grass.

I heard them incessantly nibbling and carrying away all that night; and they continued all next day (Sunday), and all that night too, with unabated energy. They had thus been thirty-six hours at it, and seemed as fresh as ever. In some situations, if we remained a day, they devoured the grass beneath my mat, and would have eaten that too had we not laid down more grass. At some of their operations they beat time in a curious manner. Hundreds of them are engaged in building a large tube, and they wish to beat it smooth. At a signal, they all give three or four energetic beats on the plaster in unison.

It produces a sound like the dropping of rain off a bush when touched.

These insects are the chief agents employed in forming a fertile soil.

But for their labors, the tropical forests, bad as they are now with fallen trees, would be a thousand times worse. They would be impassable on account of the heaps of dead vegetation lying on the surface, and emitting worse effluvia than the comparatively small unburied collections do now.

When one looks at the wonderful adaptations throughout creation, and the varied operations carried on with such wisdom and skill, the idea of second causes looks clumsy. We are viewing the direct handiwork of Him who is the one and only Power in the universe; wonderful in counsel; in whom we all live, and move, and have our being.

The Batoka of these parts are very degraded in their appearance, and are not likely to improve, either physically or mentally, while so much addicted to smoking the mutokwane (`Cannabis sativa').

They like its narcotic effects, though the violent fit of coughing which follows a couple of puffs of smoke appears distressing, and causes a feeling of disgust in the spectator. This is not diminished on seeing the usual practice of taking a mouthful of water, and squirting it out together with the smoke, then uttering a string of half-incoherent sentences, usually in self-praise. This pernicious weed is extensively used in all the tribes of the interior. It causes a species of phrensy, and Sebituane's soldiers, on coming in sight of their enemies, sat down and smoked it, in order that they might make an effective onslaught.

I was unable to prevail on Sekeletu and the young Makololo to forego its use, although they can not point to an old man in the tribe who has been addicted to this indulgence. I believe it was the proximate cause of Sebituane's last illness, for it sometimes occasions pneumonia. Never having tried it, I can not describe the pleasurable effects it is said to produce, but the hashish