132 THE COMBAT. 



serpent, the most venomous of his tribe. He was about to cut it in 

 two when a merciful Hindu interposed, obtained its pardon, and took 

 up the serpent. Stung by it, he died immediately. 



Such are the terrors of nature in those formidable climates. But 

 reptiles, now-a-days rare, are not the greatest curse. In all places 

 and at all times it is now the insect. Insects everywhere, and in 

 everything ; they possess an infinity of means for attacking you ; 

 they walk, swim, glide, fly ; they are in the air, and you breathe 

 them. Invisible, they make known their presence by the most 

 painful wounds. Recently, in one of our sea-ports, an official of the 

 customs opened a parcel of papers brought from the colonies a long 

 time previously. A fly furiously darted out of it ; it pursued, it 

 stung him ; two days afterwards he was a corpse. 



The hardiest of men, the buccaneers and filibusters, declared that of 

 all dangers and of all pains they dreaded most the wounds of insects. 



Frequently intangible, invisible, irresistible, they are destruction 

 itself under an unavoidable form. How shall you oppose them when 

 they make war upon you in legions ? Once, at Barbadoes, the in- 

 habitants observed an immense army of great ants, which, impelled 

 by unknown causes, advanced in a serried column and in the same 

 direction against the houses. To kill them was only trouble lost. 

 There were no means of arresting their progress. At last an ingenious 

 mind fortunately suggested that trains of gunpowder should be laid 

 across their route, and set on fire. These volcanoes terrified them, 

 and the torrent of invasion gradually turned aside. 



No mediaeval armoury, with all the strange weapons then made 

 use of; no chirurgical implement factory, with the thousands of 

 dreadful instruments invented by modem art, can be compared with 

 the monstrous armour of Tropical insects their pincers, their nippers, 

 their teeth, their saws, their horns, their augers, all their tools of 

 combat, of death, and of dissection, with which they come armed to the 

 battle, with which they labour, pierce, cut, rend, and finely partition, 

 with skill and dexterity equal to their furious blood-thirstiness. 



Our grandest works may not defy the energetic force of these 



