Bee-Hunters. 209 



bees that had covered it flying off and forming a dense cloud 

 above and around. The man then lay at full length along the 

 limb, and brushed off the remaining bees with his hand, and 

 then drawing his knife cut off the comb at one slice close to 

 the tree, and attaching the thin cord to it, let it down to his 

 companions below. He was all this time enveloped in a crowd 

 of angry bees, and how he bore their stings so coolly and 

 went on with his work at that giddy height so deliberately, 

 was more than I could understand. The bees were not evi- 

 dently stupefied by the smoke or driven away far by it, and 

 it was impossible that the small stream from the torch could 

 protect his whole body when at work. There were three 

 other combs on the same tree, and aU were successively taken, 

 and furnished the whole party with a luscious feast of honey 

 and young bees, as well as a valuable lot of wax. 



After two of the combs had been let down, the bees be- 

 came rather numerous below, flying about wildly and stinging 

 viciously. Several got about me, and I was soon stung, and 

 had to run away, beating them off with my net and capturing 

 them for specimens. Several of them followed me for at 

 least half a mile, getting into my hair and persecuting me 

 most pertinaciously, so that I was more astonished than ever 

 at the immunity of the natives, I am inclined to think that 

 slow and deliberate motion, and no attempt at escajDe, are per- 

 haps the best safeguards. A bee settling on a passive native 

 probably behaves as it would on a tree or other inanimate 

 substance, which it does not attempt to sting. Still they must 

 often suffer, but they are used to the pain, and learn to bear 

 it impassively, as without doing so no man could be a bee- 

 hunter. 



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