A Thousand Miles in a Machilla 



crumbling remains marking the outline only. I 

 wondered why the growing trees were not also 

 utterly destroyed, but came to the conclusion that in 

 the rainy season the mud gets saturated and falls 

 from the trees, thus saving them. Whether this 

 beneficent rain destroys a large number of ants at 

 the same time I have no knowledge. In some 

 places where the white ant was absent, young 

 saplings were growing from fallen trunks promising 

 to replace in time the parent tree. 



One would often doze off in the early morning, 

 then, as in a dream, hear "swi-ish, swi-ish," and 

 wake to find the carriers wading through a bog. 

 A fragrant smell would rise to one's nostrils as 

 the men trod upon various sweet-smelling herbs 

 that grew in marshy ground. A plant, something 

 like wild mint, was very fragrant, and should be, 

 I think, medicinal. Perhaps on a damp morning 

 hundreds of centipedes with red rings would be 

 seen lying on the top of every shining stone or 

 ant-hill, beautiful creatures after their own kind. I 

 also noticed large black centipedes six inches long, 

 with bodies thick as a man's finger ; their yellow 

 legs are not all on the ground at once; they rise 

 and fall, making waves of colour as they walk. On 

 one occasion a centipede over a foot long and thick 

 in proportion was crawling on the outside of my 

 tent. I called one of the boys to remove him, 

 which he did with a stick. 



From our machillas we saw little nature pictures : 

 sometimes a yellow butterfly poised on a scarlet 

 flower ; at others, green caterpillars crawling up the 



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