GLIMPSES OF EAST AFRICA AND ZANZIBAR 



noise one night, when shut up in their bath-room ; 

 they went to him and found him nearly mad with the 

 bites of these ants and his body was covered with 

 the Httle creatures. Before Mark understood what 

 they were like, he sat down for a second on their 

 trail but quickly jumped up, howling. I had to 

 carefully pull each ant off his coat, and I counted 

 thirty which had managed to get on to him in that 

 short time. Afterwards he always avoided them 

 or took a big leap over their path when we came 

 across it, having a great respect for them. The 

 other puppies used to poke their noses among them 

 till they learnt their lesson too. I heard a tale of 

 a woman being very ill in bed, when the little 

 wretches came into her house and room and then 

 swarmed up the bed. She saved herself by having 

 the presence of mind to lie perfectly still till they 

 had passed over. Then there are other kinds of 

 ants, which eat your food and any dead insect ; I 

 have seen about twenty of them busy taking away 

 a dead cockroach, which is about four times the 

 size of an English one. Then last, but not least, 

 there are the white ants, which are blind and love 

 darkness ; when they move from place to place they 

 build little tunnels of earth as they go along for the 

 others to pass through. They make these tunnels 

 up the trunks of trees till they come to the dead 

 wood, which they eat, beginning with the centre 



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