116 Biography of the late Captain Dug aid Carmichael 



were guarded by this contrivance against a surprise by serp6nt«, 

 which frequently creep up along the wall, or descend from the 

 thatch, and devour both the mother and her brood." 



" One evening, it was, I think, about the middle of May, as 

 we sat enjoying ourselves after dinner, we observed a number of 

 flies, of an uncommon aspect, flitting past the tent. We started 

 up and endeavoured to catch one of them, but without effect. 

 Some Hottentot children, who were standing on an opposite 

 bank, remarking our anxiety, came and oftered us whole hand- 

 fuls of them ; and directing us to the spot where they had caught 

 them, our astonishment is not to be expressed, when we beheld 

 millions of winged insects, issuing into daylight through fissures 

 in the earth, and through the pores, as it were, of the ground, 

 where no opening was perceptible. Near these outlets, the 

 children had posted themselves, and collecting the insects as 

 they emerged, greedily devoured them. Such of them as escaped 

 the Hottentots^ were snapped up as they flew along by the small 

 birds, and by the Libellulce and other predatory flies. The 

 body of these tiny insects is so small, and the wings are so large 

 and unwieldy, that they could hardly support themselves in the 

 air, as they floated along at the humour of the breeze. They 

 were the males of the Termes capensis ; commonly known by 

 the name of the White Ant. 



" No country in the world is more infested with ants than the 

 Gape. These insects vary in size, from the red Nigar, scarcely 

 visible to the naked eye, to the Black Ant, measuring nearly an 

 inch in length. Their habitations are as various as their species. 

 The smaller tribes excavate the ground, removing the soil, and 

 depositing it as a rampart round the entrance, to keep off* the 

 water. The large black ants content themselves with enlarging 

 such cavities as they find ready formed, under flat stones, thus 

 providing themselves with an impenetrable roof. A smaller 

 species of the same colour, constructs its nest on the top of a 

 bush, enclosing such parts of the branches as come within the 

 sphere of the external covering, which is as thin as paper, yet 

 proof against the heaviest rain. But the most numerous and 

 interesting insects are the Termites, of which the Cape furnishes 

 several kinds. Of these, one species builds its nests on the sur- 

 face of the ground. These are fabricated of loam, of an hemi- 



