SOME QUEER AND TROUBLESOME NEIGHBORS. 51 



or body of a human being — a venomous track, punc- 

 tured in the skin. 



Its poisonous punctures are made by the front pair 

 of feet, which are supplied with poisonous ducts or 

 glands ; but its sting is even worse, and sufficient to 

 cause fever in a grown person. The natives fear it 

 far more than they do the scorpion or the tarantula, 

 and have a superstitious dread of it. With its flat, 

 glistening body, its scores of legs twinkling, and its 

 rapid motions, it appears the very embodiment of evil 

 — as it is. 



As to the tarantulas, I saw but few of them ; but 

 one leaped at my hand one morning, and came so near 

 seizing it with its horrible hairy legs that I was very 

 much shocked. I killed it, and then instituted a search 

 for others of its kind, finding but one, its mate, which 

 I sent to join the first. 



A more insidious foe is the chigoe, or jigger, a spe- 

 cies of flea, which burrows beneath the skin of one's 

 toes, unless one is constantly on the watch, and there 

 lays eggs which develop into festering sores. 



Being constantly on the alert, knowing my de- 

 fenseless condition, so far from all human help, I for- 

 tunately escaped every kind of insect inimical to me, 

 and was not bitten even by an ant, though this mi- 

 nute insect was abundant and sometimes annoying. 

 Indeed, I got more pleasure from watching the vari- 

 ous species of ants at work than I experienced an- 

 noyance from all together. That was a momentous 

 occasion, for instance, when I first saw the marching 

 millions of them in the forest. I had taken the trail 



